PPS IH 
Soe eee 


Ss 


ee ee 


ec operate ee BAERS, S aes ree Se PRO 

eae be sa 5 or ns . % Wee wy C Pees wD wy s : 
eee ea Es ES ICL 
Sse EEE AREA EDEL ES ERE R ELE 
Fe, ; gs v i. 3 BEA : % oA yore ‘ : to 7 5 = Se eae oe z Pre see 
~ a p 4 ? z : : MSF SES ORI 
esereceeetes on OY ‘ san beet a a en eae oe wah or OS : y ooh WA Ae PEE “ae 
See Oe Ee OBO EL BER EER 


AeA 
POSS, 
ah oe SORIA 


ie 


¥ 
+. 


heii 


teor' 


7 a 

Vint 

Sethe 

Eoin, i alae cp Ae An J Ag oF A, 

BR A hee gh aA SOY. 
IEEE ee 

ees 
aie ete dk 


49 
engage 
La 
yee + 4 
rey, 
Aas 


a 
ts 
or 
Pur 


7 
Ae 


ee eee Sh ele boo 
pa ea See err eae 
aR hh Bh 
Si en Gn he i te ar i a te ne a ae wr, 
Bias ir es es Ss Se SS SSS SN : 
- SEEIASESR RS Re EE ‘ . : a 2 i : : ‘ : 
AAS AAS RS RR at * ere Pa ; aos C ‘ : ox : : ee + Poe's PPPOE PE OP OO IO 5 TPP IME S| 
ee no he ay ‘ rf é ae 2 E, a ohn 2 P . “ : oa Ca if co ee, 
a oo = ; : ; = : “a ss . a5, ; ee “es cs 5 ; F OE 
MES 


Lee te axack: a 
Soe. = . 
eS SS, as 
- * pier Seer 
~ ene eer as 5 <y. Y ° % 
ee a oe ee 
a ey a eT A Ae I 
= ehhh ph 
i ee Anke a eA ry, 
weer ee een ee eS 
ee Ss Se ee 2 


Ae v co Na a 

: “ee Tee c rhe Cae Ser a er LL 

‘ “ hee CS a hb eee, i, > a cM >. 
et aL See eee ee eS ‘ POUR are 

cm ’ oan Me ‘| ‘ ie We SE nbs ha cde 
Ree ew f SO bh Se ON 
Fe Oe a i en be ee Ne eS SO 
5 RR te ob BR "4 Beech os, angen te rae 


eS Tat he 
Ce on Mpektdnae <i "s 
aed ade ae oe Pony " : Sal. Fe he ae 
eb. - A * : nn A oe y Bk OS SD AS We MAK DA BAY MLS 
ese 'Y 2 : 3 p Be hs y, Pp ie ap nt tae Sy , war ory “3 Y ¢ % a (Ae nk he Bee 
ee pee , ” . . ee ey : Pee > aie : we . ~~ vs < ae PS ae <a 


A teh cs % 
ete I ee 


abe 

3 ee ee 

mabe he Sn Bn sn 
eA 


“>. ao 

= vs ‘ ‘ eo > dS 

Bie ae Se Sit Sea eS eS Seg : ye eee IC Ee : 
ee be : arr err Nias aT Se Ne ead ie Se Ser ae OES 
> eS : : EEE NSE Sak SE NE 


ah ah de 





ht 


~e_ B DD) De 1D BH 


ie 


THE UNIVERSITY 
OF ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


JNIVERSITY Ure = 
ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
T URBANA-CHAMPAIGN - 





te 





eae 
| 








The person charging this material is re- 
sponsible for its return to the library from 
which it was withdrawn on or before the 
Latest Date stamped below. 

Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons 
for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from 


the University. 
To renew cail Telephone Center, 333-8400 


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 


L161—O-1096 





et i 
; Na 
Lawn fil 


wana tiee F ‘ 
CNOA {it 
if Hae tn 


hed 


Many 
Oa ist 
* 





Library of Pbilosopby. 
MOPED LOL) © BY J FT, M UIRHEAD, LL.D. 


DIALOGUES ON METAPHYSICS 
AND ON RELIGION 


Library of Philosophy 


GeneraL Epiror: Prorgssor J. H. MUIRHEAD, LLD. 


ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY By Prof. G. F, Stout. Two Vols. 4th Impression 
APPEARANCE AND REALITY By F. H. BRADLEY. 6th Impression. 
ATTENTION By Prof. W. B. PILLSBURY. 2nd Impression. oF 
CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY By Prof. G. VILLA. : 
HISTORY OF AESTHETIC By Dr. B. BOSANQUET. 4th Impression, 
HISTORY OF ENGLISH UTILITARIANISM By Prof. E. ALBEE. 
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY By J. E. ERDMANN, 

Vol. I. ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL. 4th Impression. 

Vol. II. MODERN. 6th Impression. 

Vol. III. SINCE HEGEL. 6/h Impression. 

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY By Prof. G. S, BRETT, 

Vol. I. ANCIENT AND PATRISTIC. 


Vol. II. MEDIZ VAL AND EARLY MODERN PERIOD. 
Vol, III. MODERN PSYCHOLOGY, 


MATTER AND MEMORY By Prof. HENRI BERGSON, Translated by N. M. 
PAUL and W.S. PALMER. 37d Impression. ae 

NATURAL RIGHTS By D.G. RITCHIE, 3rd Impression. 

PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY By Dr. J. BONAR. 

RATIONAL THEOLOGY SINCE KANT By Prof. O. PFLEIDERER, 

THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND By G. W. F. HEGEL, Translated by 
Prof. J. B. BAILLIE. Two Vols. 

THOUGHT AND THINGS; or, Genrtic LoGic By Pref. J. M. BALDWIN. 

Vol. I. FUNCTIONAL LOGIC. 


Vol. Il. EXPERIMENTAL LOGIC, 
Vol, III. ReaL Loaic (I., GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY). 


TIME AND FREE WILL By Prof. HENRI BERGSON. Translated by F. L* 
POGSON. 3rd Impression. P 
VALUATION: THE THEORY OF VALUE By Prof. W. M. URBAN. 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE By Prof. G. M, 
STRATTON. ‘ 
THE GREAT PROBLEMS By Pref. BERNARDINO VaRIsco. Translated by 

Prof. R. C. LODGE. _ 
KNOW THYSELF By Prof. BERNARDINO VARISCO. Translated by Dr, 
GUGLIELMO SALVADORI. >, 
ELEMENTS OF FOLK PSYCHOLOGY By W. Wunpt. Translated by Dr. 

EDWARD L. SCHAUB. 2nd Impression. 
GIAMBATTISTA VICO By BENEDETTO CROocE. Translated by R. G, 
COLLINGWOOD. - 
ELEMENTS OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY By Prof. J. S. MACKENZIE, 
and Intpression. 

SOCIAL PURPOSE By Principal H. J. W. HETHERINGTON and Prof. I. H. 
MUIRHEAD. 

INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY By BERTRAND 
RUSSELL, F.R.S. 2nd Impression, 

GOD AND PERSONALITY (GIFFORD LECTURES) By Prof. CLEMENT C, J. 
WEBB. (Part I.) 

DIVINE PERSONALITY AND HUMAN LIFE (GIFForRD LECTURES) By 
Prof, CLEMENT C. J. WEBB. (Part II.) 

MODERN PHILOSOPHY By Gurpo DE RUGGIERO. Translated by A. 
HowWaRD HANNAY, B.A., and R. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., F.S.A. 

THE ANALYSIS OF MIND By BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S. 2nd Impression. 


DIALOGUES ON METAPHYSICS, By NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE. Translated 
by MORRIS GINSBERG, M.A. 


INDIAN PHILOSOPHY, By Prof. S, RADHAKRISHNAN, 


DIALOGUES ON 
METAPHYSICS 
AND ON RELIGION 


BY 


NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE 


TRANSLATED BY 


MORRIS GINSBERG, M.A. 


LECTURER IN PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY 
COLLEGE, LONDON 


WITH A PREFACE 
BY 


PROFESSOR G. DAWES HICKS 


NEW YORK 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1923 


(All rights reserved) 


Printed tn Great Britain by 
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, LONDON AND WOKING 


“ PREFACE 


BESIDES containing the best exposition Malebranche has left us 
of his philosophical system, the Entretiens sur la Métaphysique 
form one of the most exquisitely written of philosophical books 
in any language. A translation cannot, of course, be expected 
to retain either the subtle elegance or all the delicate shades of 
meaning that delight a reader of the original. But Mr. Ginsberg 
has contrived, I think, to give the English reader a faithful render- 
ing of the author’s thought, and it is matter for congratulation 
that a work of so much significance in the history of speculation 
should at length have found a scholar willing to undertake the 
labour of translating it into our tongue. 

Malebranche has been unduly neglected in most histories of 
philosophy ; seldom has either the penetration or the originality 
of his metaphysical analysis received the attention it deserves. 
Too readily it has been concluded that the position he occupied 
was but a transition stage to the standpoint, more thoroughgoing, 
as it would be called, of Spinoza. And one need not be concerned 
to question that, in not a few respects, Malebranche does, as in 
his introductory estimate Mr. Ginsberg has made sufficiently 
apparent, come extremely near to the final form assumed by the 
Cartesian philosophy in its historical development. But an 
injustice is, I think, done to Malebranche when his work is dis- 
tissed, after the manner in which Kuno Fischer dismisses it, as 
“but a half-way house to that identification of spirit and matter, 

Sof God and nature, in which Cartesianism culminated. To me 
“it seems fairly evident that Malebranche contemplated in a more 
“concrete, and therefore in a more effective, manner than Spinoza 
did certain fundamental problems—just the problems, in fact, 
“with which the Cartesian philosophy, and in particular Spinoza’s 
oform of it, found itself incompetent to deal. One discerns, if I 
A mistake not, in Malebranche’s reflections a recognition of certain 
zelements in the notions both of the finite mind and of the system 


“2of things in the midst of which the finite mind plays its part, that 
5 


0071386 


V7 Oras 
\ » GLa & 


6 PREFACE 


transcend the prevailingly mechanical framework to which the 
Cartesian interpretation of the universe had to adapt itself. Con- 
sequently, I am inclined to believe that the somewhat hesitating, 
halting character of Malebranche’s philosophising is due not more 
to its theological colouring than to the real superiority of his 
speculative insight. 

When the first edition of the Entretiens was published in 1688, 
Spinoza’s Ethics had already been before the public for a period 
of ten years.t And even the first of Malebranche’s writings, the 
Recherche de la Vérité, which saw the light in 1674, was considerably 
later in date than those treatises of Spinoza that appeared in the 
latter’s lifetime. In the correspondence, towards the end of his 
life, with De Mairan, Malebranche has left it on record that he 
had studied Spinoza’s works, although not, he says, in their entirety, 
and it is hardly conceivable that the main lines of Spinoza’s thought 
were unfamiliar to him. Indeed, apart from the rather feverish 
outburst in the ninth Dialogue, which may have been inspired 
by the representations of the “‘impious’’ doctrine furnished by 
such superficial critics as Aubert de Versé and Pierre Poiret, there 
are not wanting in the volume before us indications that the writer 
is struggling with problems which Spinoza’s dialectic may well 
have forced upon him. No doubt it was upon the conception 
of creation as an arbitrary act of divine power and not a necessary 
consequence of the divine nature that he himself fastened as 
constituting what he held to be the immeasurable cleft between 
his philosophy and Spinoza’s. While absolutely discarding Des- 
cartes’ contention that even eternal truths are contingent on 
the will of God (a view, he declared, which would mean the very 
death of knowledge), he came, it must be confessed, dangerously 
near to a similar conception in regard to the whole range of 
existent fact. For, although he might have allowed that the . 
essence of the finite is implied in the Infinite, what he actually 
insisted upon was that the real existence of the finite had no 
necessary relation to the being of the Infinite. The world was 
“‘ called into ’’ real existence; relatively to God, it is as nought, 
there is no reason for its existence; and he was obliged to have 
recourse to theological dogma in order to answer the puzzling 
question, why, then, it should exist at all. 

But the stronger features of Malebranche’s thinking come out 


t Spinoza’s Opera Posthuma, containing the Ethica, De Intellectus Emen- 
datione, and the Tvactatus politicus, appeared in 1677. 


PREFACE 7 


not in such conclusions as that just mentioned, but in the general 
considerations he brought to bear in reaching them. For example, 
with greater definiteness than Descartes had ever done, and with 
more persistency than in this connection was evinced by Spinoza, 
he laid stress upon the important, though difficult, metaphysical 
distinction between essence and existence. The infinite variety 
of possible geometrical forms in intelligible extension does not, 
he argued, necessarily imply the existence of any one geometrically 
related body. Even in sense-perception, the contents directly 
known by us, who “ dwell but in the universal Reason,”’ are essences 
or “‘ideas’’ in God. What alone induces us to assert the existence 
of entities corresponding to these “‘ideas”’ is the complex of 
confused imagery and corporeal feeling, produced by the stimula- 
tion which happens as a particular illustration or manifestation 
of the general laws established by the Divine will between soul 
and body. On the occasion of such bodily stimulation, there 
occur ‘‘ modalities ’’ or modifications of the mind—“ sensations,”’ 
as they came to be called—and through, or in conjunction with, 
these ‘‘ modalities ’’ we become aware of the primary and essential 
qualities, the ‘‘ideas’’ of things. The “‘ideas”’ are universal, 
each ‘“‘ modality ’’ or operation of the mind is particular; the 
“‘ideas ’’ are immutable, our modes of perceiving are all of them 
in time. In the awareness of a concrete thing, there are, then, 
involved (a) the “idea ’”’ or essence, more or less confusedly appre- 
hended, of extendedness, and (0) the complex of sensations or 
feelings (sentiments), which we erroneously suppose to be the 
apprehension of external qualities. Thus Malebranche is driven 
to the conclusion that we do not know but only infer the concrete 
existence of external things; and, indeed, although he conceived 
that on theological grounds their existence was assured, he made 
no attempt to explain how “intelligible extension,’ containing 
as it does no particularising features, can be determined to manifest 
itself in the form of concrete entities. Yet, with the help of this 
opposition between essence and existence, Malebranche was in 
truth formulating the problem which is the fundamental problem 
of speculative philosophy. The discussion of it runs through the 
whole of the first period of modern philosophy, and it is virtually 
that which Kant had before his mind in the contradistinction, 
often so prominent in the critical inquiry, between thinking and 
knowing. One of the merits of Malebranche’s handling of the 
subject is that the contrast which subsequent writers have fre- 


? 


8 PREFACE 


quently ignored between the act of cognising and the content 
cognised was by him consistently kept in view. In perceiving 
the sun, for instance, though, he argued, it is true we do not see 
the actual material sun, that which we do see we recognise plainly 
enough to be something distinguishable from our act of seeing ; 
and it is, therefore, flying in the face of all the evidence (“‘ contre 
notre lumiére et contre notre conscience’’) to assert that what the 
mind sees are its own states or modifications. No doubt, by 
the very fact of his locating the knowable essences of things in 
God, he was constrained to ascribe to these essences a quasi- 
existential mode of being, and thus exposed himself to Arnauld’s 
acute and justifiable criticism. But it was, at any rate, a great 
gain to clear thinking to have the contrast itself forcibly and 
lucidly exhibited. As another example of Malebranche’s peculiar 
suggestiveness, I should instance his striking reflections upon the 
nature of self-consciousness. It is true, he maintained, that the 
““jdea’’ or essence of each finite soul must be present in God, 
but we do not know our own minds by way of ideas. The self, 
that is to say, is not for us a definitely apprehended object; we 
are aware of the self only through the obscure channel of feeling. 
While of material things we know the essence but not the existence, 
of the soul we feel the existence but know not the essence. Im- 
possible though it may be to reconcile this contention with his 
metaphysical doctrine, yet the contention in itself evinces a 
remarkable discernment of the real difficulties of introspective 
observation. A further feature of interest in Malebranche’s treat- 
ment of the mental life, and a feature of it which has received 
comparatively little notice, is the emphasis that he laid upon the 
capacity of Attention. It is, he held, God who acts in us; but 
God acts by means of general laws, and the particular states of 
what may be called the practical consciousness which precede 
action on our part are, in accordance with his theory, the ‘‘ occa- 
sions’ on which God’s general regulations come into force. These 
antecedents of particular action on our part are summed up by 
Malebranche under the term “attention.’”’ We have, he insisted, 
the power of dwelling upon our motives and impulses, and thus 
of comparing them with that illumination extended to us in reason 
or in the conceptions we have of the divine order. And through 


t In phraseology almost identical with that used later by Locke, Male- 
branche tells us that by the word “‘idea’’ he understands nothing else than 
*‘that which is the immediate object of, or nearest to, the mind, when we 
perceive any object.” 


PREFACE 9 


attention we acquire a control over our actions; all the typical 
forms of virtue depend for their realisation upon its exercise. 

The form into which the work here translated is thrown, that 
of dialogue, is not an easy one to handle; and it can scarcely 
be claimed that Malebranche has succeeded in utilising it with 
a skill equal to Berkeley’s. The Entretiens have not the artistic 
charm of Alciphron, although they may be compared, perhaps 
not unfavourably, with Hylas and Philonous. The characters in 
the Dialogues are three in number. Theodore personates Male- 
branche himself, and unfolds the main tenets of his philosophy 
to Aristes, in whose study the discussions are supposed to take 
place. Aristes is apparently a young man, who is conversant with 
the philosophical and theological opinions of the time. He is a 
willing pupil, eager to assimilate the principles propounded by 
his friend and instructor. At times he exhibits an almost boyish 
enthusiasm when the significance of a new thought has dawned 
upon him. Theotimus is introduced rather as an intermediary 
for the purpose of bringing the minds of the other two into a 
condition of mutual understanding than as making any serious 
contribution to the argument. He is evidently a priest who has 
had a wide experience of ordinary humanity, and his chief concern 
would seem to be to justify the teaching of the Church as presented 
to the multitude. On the whole, the dramatic setting of the work 
is not without its attractiveness; and we derive from it a fairly 
clear impression of the kind of atmosphere in the midst of which 
Malebranche’s life was lived. 

More than two hundred years have passed away since Male- 
branche’s death. But of his works there is still no complete or 
reliable edition. The only edition that has claimed to be complete 
is that which was edited by Genoude and Lourdoueix and published 
in two volumes in 1837-38. In the first place, however, this 
edition is now out of print; and, in the second place, its claim 
to completeness is quite ill-founded. Not to mention the con- 
siderable amount of Malebranche’s correspondence which has 
been printed since 1837, the edition in question does not contain a 
large number of his writings that are of importance for an adequate 
understanding of his thought. The Entretiens, in particular, have 
suffered badly in the hands of editors. The book was originally 
published by Reinier Leers at Rotterdam in 1688. André relates 
that Malebranche’s secretary, Carré Louis, wishful to show his 
gratitude to his benefactor, endeavoured to obtain the consent 


10 PREFACE 


of King Louis XIV to the Entretiens being printed in France. 
The attempt turned out to be successful. A Paris edition appeared 
accordingly in 1699, and for that edition the work was augmented 
by a long Preface, in which the author quotes a number of passages 
from St. Augustine in support of his views, and also by three new 
Entretiens sur la mort, besides which the text was revised and 
several additions made to it. In the edition of Genoude and 
Lourdoueix the Preface is omitted; and in the various editions 
of the Ceuvres de Malebranche, said to be “‘ collationnées sur les 
meilleurs textes,’’ by Jules Simon, both the Preface and the three 
new Entretiens are wanting. All this points to the crying need 
for a carefully revised and complete collection of Malebranche’s 
works. Nor is it only philosophers who should be interested in 
such an undertaking. Malebranche’s researches on the nature of 
light and colour have, as Pierre Duhem has shown, a distinct 
title to recognition in the history of physics, and his psychological 
theory of vision is, as Professor Norman Smith has made manifest, 
a great advance upon any earlier theory, in some respects even 
an advance upon Berkeley’s. No one will accuse the French 
people of habitually forgetting their great men; and I trust the 
day is not far distant when, under the direction of competent 
scholars, Malebranche’s writings will be presented to the world 
in a form that is worthy of them. 


G. DAWES HICKS. 
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. 


x. 


CONTENTS 


RRC Pern We ete Vina OG ak on de ae 


TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION 


Part I. LIFE AND WoRKS OF MALEBRANCHE , ‘ ; ° : T5 


Part II. MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE . i F 2 21 


A. The Vision of All Things in God, 21. 
B. Intelligible Extension, 29. 
C. The Knowledge of Our Own Minds, 30. 
D, Our Knowledge of Other Minds, 32. 
E. Our Knowledge of God, 33. 
F. Some Critical Considerations, 34. 
Part III. MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC Pe abr ais ast oR es ah 
A. The Nature and Attributes of God, 43. 
B. God’s Relation to the World, 50. 
C. The Theory of Occasionalism, 51. 
D. Malebranche’s Speculation in Relation to Neo- 
Platonism, Cartesianism, and the Monadology of 
Leibniz, 61. 
DIALOGUES 
First DIALOGUE ge ae: Me Ree Ag ek eteitee Le ; Og 


The soul and its distinction from the body—The nature of ideas 
—The world in which our bodies dwell and which we survey is 
quite different from the world which we see. 


CM URISALAS SS. GUUS RIN aN ec heb 0) eke Cee aL. wae tae sm Al de Ophea 
We see all things in God, and nothing finite is capable of 
representing Him—Thus it is sufficient to think of Him to 


know that He exists. 
il 


12 CONTENTS 


THIRD DIALOGUE 


The difference between our feelings and our ideas—We must 
judge of things only by the ideas which are representative of 
them and not by the feelings by which we are affected through 
their presence or on their occasion. 


FourtTH DIALOGUE é , ‘ 


The general nature and properties of the senses—The wisdom of 
the laws of the conjunction of soul and body—This union changed 
into a relation of dependence by the sin of the first man. 


FirtH DIALOGUE . “ ‘ : 


The function of the senses in the sciences—Our sensations contain 
a clear idea and a confused feeling—The idea does not belong to 
the sensation—It is the idea which enlightens the mind and the 
feeling which stimulates it and renders it attentive; for it is by 
means of feeling that the intelligible idea becomes sensible. 


SIXTH DIALOGUE 7 " 4 “ 5 


Proofs of the existence of bodies, based on revelation—Two kinds 
of revelation—Explanation of the fact that the natural revela- 
tions of the sensations are a source of error. 


SEVENTH DIALOGUE . ; ‘ A i J . ‘ 


The inefficacy of natural causes or the impotence of created things 
—We are united immediately and directly to God alone. 


EIGHTH DIALOGUE ; j : : A 4 ; 4 6 
God and His attributes. 


NINTH DIALOGUE . 2 , ‘ “ , : : ‘ 


God always acts in accordance with His nature; He has created 
all things for the sake of His glory in Jesus Christ, and He did 
not form His designs without prior regard to the ways of their 
realisation. 


TENTH DIALOGUE . 3 ‘ 5 ls : m 4 4 i by 


The magnificence of God in the greatness and infinite number 
of His different works—The simplicity and fecundity of the ways 


PAGE 


99 


12! 


142 


160 


177 


202 


225 


249 


CONTENTS 13 


PAGE 
in which He conserves them and develops them—tThe providence 


of God in the first impression of movement which He communi- 
cated to matter—This first action, which is not determined by 
general laws, is regulated by an infinite wisdom. 


ELEVENTH DIALOGUE . . . pee a fe 


The same_ subject continued—General Providence in the 
arrangement of bodies and the infinitely infinite combinations 
of the physical with the moral, of the natural with the super- 
natural. 


TWELFTH DIALOGUE sad yee Nica Tut ies Ub se Nii IY aN : - 297 


The Divine Providence in the laws of the conjunction of soul and 
body—tThrough this conjunction God brings us into relation 
with all His works—The laws of the union of the mind 
with Reason—The formation of societies through these two 
sorts of law—The distribution among men, through the aid of 
the angels, of temporary goods, and through Jesus Christ of 
inner grace and all kinds of good—The generality of Providence. 


THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE a hore ne 


It is not right to criticise the ordinary accounts of Providence— 
The principal general laws by the aid of which God governs the 
world—The providence of God in bestowing infallibility upon 
His Church. 


FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE La ee Ad nse) cathe) Wit) mike). ied ie at a ee 
The same continued—The incomprehensibility of our mysteries 
is a conclusive proof of their truth—Elucidation of the dogmas of 
faith—The incarnation of Jesus Christ—Proof of His divinity 
against the Socinians—All creatures, even the angels, are able 
to worship God, through His aid alone—Faith in Jesus Christ 
renders us acceptable before God. 


INDEX ° 2 e e 373 


EO pu ce 
fe) BAI 
Dy hge by epg 
if ead a 

! 





TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION 


Part I 
LIFE AND WORKS OF MALEBRANCHE 


NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE was born at Paris on August 6, 1638. 
He was the son of Nicolas Malebranche, a royal secretary, and 
of Catherine de Lauzon, a gifted and attractive woman, to whose 
- influence his most important biographer, Father André,? 
attributes not only Malebranche’s piety, but the delicacy and 
charm of his writings. Malebranche was the youngest of a 
large family. He suffered all his life from malformation of the 
spine. On this account, he was educated at home till the age 
of sixteen, when he was sent to the Collége de la Marche. There 
he studied under Rouillard—an Aristotelian—and graduated 
Maitre és Arts in 1656. Father André tells us that Malebranche 
was profoundly dissatisfied with the philosophy that he had been 
taught, finding it “‘ neither great nor true, full of vain subtleties, 
perpetual equivocation, lacking in taste and Christian spirit,” 

Intended from the first for the Church, Malebranche then 
went to the Sorbonne to study theology. But here again he 
found no satisfaction. Theology, according to Father André, 
was ‘‘only a confused mass of human opinions, frivolous 
discussions and hair-splitting subtleties, without any order or 
principle or rational interconnection.’’ He was offered a canonry 
at the Notre Dame, but he refused to accept it; and at the age 
of twenty-two he entered the Oratory, where he studied ecclesi- 
astical history, Hebrew and Biblical criticism. 

« Cf. La vie du R. P. Malebranche, par le P. André (Paris, Ingold, 1886), 


and the Eloges (1731) of Fontenelle. 
15 


16 LIFE AND WORKS OF MALEBRANCHE 


Malebranche was undoubtedly the child of the Oratory, as 
well as the disciple of Descartes. The Oratory was founded 
in 1611 by Cardinal Bérulle, who had a profound veneration 
for St. Augustine, and, through his influence, St. Augustine 
became the favoured theologian of the institution. Through 
St. Augustine interest was aroused in Platonism. Although 
Bérulle was a friend of Descartes, he did not introduce the Carte- 
sian doctrine into the Oratory. This was done by his successor 
—Father de Condren—and very soon there were at the Oratory 
numerous adherents of Descartes. Their philosophy, however, 
always retained that tendency towards idealism and Platonism 
which is so characteristic of Malebranche. Especially was 
this so in the case of André Martin, better known as Ambrosius 
Victor, who was the first professor of the congregation to lead his 
pupils to the study of Descartes’ philosophy. His work entitled 
Philosophia Christiana,! though Descartes is not mentioned in it, 
is really an attempt at a synthesis of the doctrines of Descartes 
and St. Augustine, and anticipates Malebranche’s teaching in 
several respects. 

We learn from Father André that at first Malebranche only 
knew the works of Descartes at second-hand, and even that 
he was “‘extremement prévenu contre ce philosophe.’’ Be 
this as it may, the story goes that at the age of twenty-six he 
accidentally picked up at a bookstall Descartes’ little treatise 
De Homine. He was struck by its method, and was especially 
attracted by the idea of a universal mechanics. ‘‘ The joy of 
becoming acquainted with so large a number of discoveries caused 
him such palpitations of the heart that he was obliged to stop 
reading in order to recover his breath.’”’ He immediately set 
himself to study systematically mathematics and the books 
of Descartes. He always retained his admiration for Descartes, 
““who’’ he said, “in thirty years has discovered more truths 
than all the other philosophers put together.”’ 

After ten years’ study, Malebranche published the first 
volume of the Recherche de la Vérité, in 1674, and the second 
volume appeared in 1675. The book was a great success, and 
was admired by many thinkers, including Arnauld, Fénélon and 
Bossuet. The congregation of the Oratory passed a special vote 
of commendation. In the lifetime of the author the work passed 


t Philosophia Christiana seu sanctus Augustinus de philosophia unt- 
veysim, 1671, 


LIFE AND WORKS OF MALEBRANCHE 17 


through six editions, and was constantly revised and enlarged 
by supplementary explanations. It was translated into Latin 
by the Abbé L’Enfant, a member of the Academy of Berlin, under 
the title De Inquirtenda verttate, libri sex, Geneva, 1685, and 
was eagerly studied in Italy, Spain, Germany, and Holland. In 
England two translations appeared, one by Brook Taylor,! a 
secretary of the Royal Society, and another by R. Sault.? 
The book, however, called forth lively opposition, in the first 
place from the ultra-Cartesians, and in the second place and 
especially from the theologians. A discussion with regard to 
his doctrine of Grace led to a meeting between Malebranche 
and his most formidable opponent, Antoine Arnauld. Malebranche 
promised to give an exposition of his views in writing, and this 
he did in the Tratté de la Nature et de la Grace. Arnauld replied 
in his book Des vrates et des fausses Idées, published in 1683, in 
which he attacked the whole basis of Malebranche’s metaphysical 
system. The polemic, thus begun, lasted many years, constantly 
increasing in bitterness. Arnauld was anxious to humble 
Malebranche’s “‘ pride, boastfulness and impertinence.” Male- 
branche restated his position in various forms and constantly 
complained of being misunderstood—a fact which made Boileau 
ask, “‘ Eh, mon pére, qui donc voulex-vous qui vous comprenne ?’”’ 
The treatise on Grace was put on the Index in 1690. 

Apart from his polemical writings, Malebranche was the 


author of many important works. The Entretiens sur la Méta-»— 


physique was published in 1688, and may be regarded as the 
finished and definitive exposition of his philosophy. Without 
being deliberately polemical, it deals with all the points in his 
metaphysics that had been contested. 


Malebranche devoted much of his attention to purely te 


scientific work. Fontenelle 3 thought him a great geometrician 
and physicist, and he was elected a member of the ‘‘ Académie 
Royale des Sciences’ in 1699, in recognition of his Tyvatté des 
lois de la Communication du Mouvement. He may be regarded 


t Father Malebranche’s Treatise concerning the Search after Truth, 2 vols. 
Oxford, 1694. 

a Malebranche’s Search after Truth, ov a Treatise of the Nature of the 
Humane Mind and of its Management for avoiding Error in the Sciences. 
There is contained a life of Malebranche, together with some account of his 
controversies, written by Le Vasseur and translated by R. Sault. 2 vols, 
London, 1694-5. 

3 Eloge de Malebrancke. 


ig LIFE AND WORKS OF MALEBRANCHE 


as one of the founders of the science of the infinitesimal calculus, 
and was the editor of the Analyse des infiniment petits, by de 
L’H6pital. He modified considerably Descartes’ doctrine of vor- 
tices. In his Réflexions surla Lumiére, les Couleurs et la Génération 
du Feu (Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences, 1699), he tried to 
give a connected explanation of light and colour by ascribing 
them both to disturbances in a luminiferous fluid. 

In this connection, reference may be made to his corre- 
spondence with Leibniz. Leibniz was in Paris in 1672, and 
appears to have had many conversations with Malebranche. 
In the treatise last mentioned, Malebranche acknowledges the 
justice of Leibniz’s criticism of the Cartesian view of the con- 
stancy of the quantity of movement in the Universe. Leibniz 
wrote critical notes on this treatise, but he never published them. 
Malebranche’s subsequent essay Des injiniment petits was also 
submitted to Leibniz, and was eventually published at the end 
of the Recherche de la Vérité in the edition of 1700. 

In addition to his interest in physics and mathematics, 
Malebranche also devoted himself to anatomy, and above all 
to a study of the life of insects. For literary erudition, he seems 
to have had a great contempt. He was more moved, he tells us, 
by observation of the ways of an insect than by the whole 
history of Greece and Rome, and in a single principle of physics 
and of morals he found more truth than in all the books of 
history. Despite his contempt for literature, however, he was 
himself possessed of a graceful and attractive style, and 
though he constantly declaimed against imagination, he had, as 
Fontenelle said, ‘“‘a very noble and living imagination himself, 
which worked for an ‘ingrat’ despite himself, and adorned his 
reason while constantly hiding itself from it.”” Leibniz, Diderot 
and many others agree in praising Malebranche’s lucidity and 
elegance of phrasing, and Voltaire even recommended his writings 
as a model of philosophical exposition. ‘‘ His diction,’ as 
Fontenelle says, “‘is pure and chaste, and has all the dignity 
which the subject requires and all the grace of which it admits.” 

The life of Malebranche was essentially that of a thinker. 
Already at college, his teachers described him as “‘ pieux’”’ and 
““ méditatif ’’ ; and the whole of his subsequent career was devoted 
to quiet meditation and communion with God. In polemic 
he invariably engaged against his own will. His best work was 
done in the quiet of the country. He had, as he put it, no need 


be 
i 
| 
iy 
rf 
mi 
Ei 
f 
i 
4 
5 
q 








LIFE AND WORKS OF MALEBRANCHE 19 


of books. “‘ There are few, or no books, which please me. 
When I was only twenty-five I understood what I read in books, 
but now I do not understand them for the most part at all.’’! 
He was, however, by no means a recluse. He was visited by 
numerous scholars from all parts of the world, and he carried on 
an extensive correspondence. He took great delight in talking 
to and playing with children, and would invent stories for them 
with wonderful facility. His personal charm, his nobility of 
mind, his love of truth, his winning modesty, simplicity and 
sincerity, made him universally beloved, and contributed, in 
no small measure, to the success and fame of his work. 

He was taken ill while staying with a friend of his family 
at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. He was brought back to the 
Oratory, and died after four months of great suffering. His 
disease, says Fontenelle, ‘‘ adapted itself to his philosophy. The 
body, which he so much despised, was reduced to nothing ; but 
like the mind, accustomed to supremacy, continued sane and sound. 
He remained throughout a calm spectator of his own long death, 
the last moment of which was such that it was believed he was 
merely resting.’’ This is confirmed by the detailed description 
of his illness and death given by Father André,? who tells us that 
Malebranche died during the night of October 13, 1715, without 
fever or inflammation, out of sheer exhaustion. It may be added 
that this detailed account of Father André leaves no room for 
the story that Malebranche’s death was hastened by a dispute 
with Berkeley. Indeed, there appears to be no evidence to 
show that the two philosophers ever met at all. 

t Lettre 4 M. Barrant, Correspondence inédite, p. 4. 


2 Cf. La vie du R. P. Malebranche, by Father André, concluding 
chapters. 


LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF MALEBRANCHE 


PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS: 
De la Recherche de la Vérité, 1674-5. 
(Latin translation under title De inquivenda Vevitate, by 
J. L’Enfant, at Geneva, 1685; English translation by 
R. Sault, 1692; and T. Taylor, under title, Treatise 
concerning the Search after Truth, 1694.) 


20 


LIFE AND WORKS OF MALEBRANCHE 


Conversations chrétiennes, 1675. 
(English translation, 1695.) 
Petites Méditations chrétiennes, 1677. 
Traité de la Natuve et de la Grace, 1680. 
(English translation, 1695.) 
Eclaircissement, ou la Suite du Traité de la Nature et de la Grace, 1681. 
Méditations chrétiennes et métaphysiques, 1683. 
Traité de Morale, 1683. 
(English translation by Sir J. Shipton, under title, A 
Treatise of Morality, 1699.) 
Entretiens sur la Métaphysique et sur la Religion, 1688. 
Entretiens sur la Mort, 1696. 
Traité de l Amour de Dieu, 1697. 
Entretien d’un Philosophe chrétien avec un Philosophe chinois, sur 
VExistence et la Nature de Dieu, 1708. 
Réflexions sur la Prémotion physique, 1715. 


SCIENTIFIC : 


Traité des Lois de la Communication des Mouvements, 1682. 
Réflexions sur la Lumiere et les Couleurs et la Génévation du Feu 
(Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences, 1699). 


POLEMICAL : 


Défense de V Auteur de la Recherche de la Vérité contre Vv Accusation 
de M. Louis de la Ville, 1682. 

Réponse de l’Auteur de la Recherche de la Vérité au lure de M. 
Arnauld des vraies et des fausses Idées, 1684. 

Lettves du P. Malebranche a un de ses amis, 1686. 

Lettves du P. Malebranche touchant celles de M. Arnauld, 1687. 

képonse a M. Regis, 1693. 

Trots Letives de Réponse au P. Lamy et une Réponse générale suivie 
d’un supplément, 1699-1700. 

Réponse du P. Malebranche a la 3° lettre de M. Arnauld, 1704. 

Recueil de toutes les Résponses du P. Malebranche a2 M. Arnauild, 
1709. 





ee a nS 





Part II 


MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF 
KNOWLEDGE 


A. The Vision of All Things in God. 


The fundamental principles of Malebranche’s theory of know- 
ledge are undoubtedly Cartesian in character. He starts from 
the view that soul and body are substances whose positive 
attributes are mutually exclusive. The essence of body or 
corporeal reality is extension, and its properties can consist only 
in spatial relations, rest, movement and figure. The essence 
of mind, on the other hand, is thought or consciousness. It 
will be seen later that the modes of thought cannot be said to be 
as Clearly involved in its essence as is the case with regard to the 
modes of extension. We know, however, by inner experience, 
that the mind can feel and will, judge, doubt, etc., and that these 
activities must be modes of the soul. Malebranche draws an 
elaborate parallel between mind and matter. The latter has two 
qualities,—namely, the capacity of receiving figure and the 
capacity of movement. So, too, the mind has firstly, the capacity 
of understanding, or of receiving ideas, and secondly, will, or the 
capacity of forming inclinations. The main object of this parallel 
is to show, in the first place, that the faculties which can be 
distinguished in mind, viz. understanding and will, are not to 
be conceived as separate entities, any more than the capacities 
possessed by matter, of receiving figures and of being moved, 
are distinct from matter ; and in the second place, to bring out the 
consideration that neither mind nor matter has any power or 
activity of its own, but that just as God is the ultimate and real 
cause of all movements in the sphere of extension, so He is the 
universal cause of all ideas and inclinations. 


It follows that the mind is essentially passive. Will is 
31 


22 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


secondary in character, is not included in the mind’s essence, 
and our knowledge of it is so obscure that we are unable to deduce 
its properties. The real nature of mind consists in a passive 
capacity of receiving ideas. The different modes of knowledge 
are merely different ways in which the understanding manifests 
itself. Three such modes are distinguished by Malebranche. 
Firstly, by pure understanding we know spiritual things, 
universals, common notions, ideas of perfection, e.g. the infinite 
Perfection, extension and its properties. Secondly, by the 
imagination we know material things in their absence, by means 
of “traces”? in the brain. Thirdly, by the senses we know sensible 
objects, through impressions produced upon our sense organs, by 
the objects themselves when present, and by the animal spirits 
when absent. Sense and imagination are really the under- 
standing when it is aware of objects through means of the 
organs of the body.t Judgment means for Malebranche, as 
for Descartes, acquiescence on the part of the will in what is 
presented to it by the. understanding, The latter does not 
judge but merely apperceives, and the will is free to give its 
consent or refuse it. The source of error, Malebranche argues, 
just as Descartes had done, lies in the will and not in the 
understanding. 

In all this there is hardly. any advance on. the..teaching of 
Descartes. Between the two thinkers there are, however, some 
far-reaching differences, and these are due in the first place to 
the fact that Malebranche worked out much more thoroughly 
than Descartes had done the logical consequences of the Cartesian 
dualism of mind and matter; and, in the second place, to the 
influence of St. Augustine and neo-Platonism, or perhaps more 
generally to his profoundly religious sense of the dependence 
of the finite mind upon the Infinite and his desire to find in 
the divine reason the ground of the human intellect. 

Descartes does not appear to have fully faced the difficulties 
in his theory of perception which arise from the sharp separation 
of mind from matter. In the main his doctrine seems to have 
been that the soul, or mind, has within itself dispositions to ideas 
of extension, movement and figure; and that, on the occasion 


1 Cf. Recherche, Bk. 1I.,Ch.1I. Despite the statement made by Malebranche 
that sense and thought are merely different forms of the understanding, 
the real tendency of his philosophy is to institute a sharp distinction of kind 
between them. 


a ee 


eh Re — nee 


ee ee 


a 


Ss 


THE VISION OF ALL THINGS IN GOD 23 


of certain movements or impressions, produced upon the sense 
organs and carried to the brain, these ideas arise in the 
mind, or are occasioned in it. The impressions or, as they were 
called by the latter Cartesians, corporeal species (cf. de la Forge) 
are not themselves known to the mind, but act merely as 
occasions or conditions of the knowledge of objects on the part 
of the mind. What happens, then, in perception is that bodies 
communicate movements to the sense organs and to the brain, 
i.e. to the pineal gland, where the soul is present, and thus excite 
in it the sensations of colour, etc., at the same time calling 
up the ideas of extension and movement, which ideas then take 
the particular determination, corresponding to and resembling 
the bodies which call them forth, Perception of an object, 
therefore, presupposes, firstly, a power in bodies to act on 
the mind and cause it to produce ideas, or to call forth ideas 
which are potentially in it, and, secondly, a faculty in the mind 
to give rise toideas. But even in the writings of Descartes there 
are many passages in which the action of bodies is confined to 
providing occasion for the mind to call up the ideas innate in it. 
Be this as it may, Malebranche explicitly denies both these pre- 
suppositions. The ascription of forces to nature or of faculties 
to mind is due, he argues, to our blind reliance on the evidence 


| of thesenses. Not only is mind unable to act on matter, or matter 


_ on mind, but all activity, either within the sphere of extension, 


_ or within the sphere of thought, is divine activity. Finite causes 
_ are at the most occasional causes. The real cause of the move- 
_ ment which takes place, on the occasion of an impact, is God. 


So, too, the real cause of our ideas cannot lie in ourselves. Man 


cannot be a light unto himself, he insists, in the language of 
St. Augustine. The account of perception given by Descartes 


is therefore liable to the two-fold objection, (a) that it involves 


interaction between the two entirely disparate substances of 


Causes 


mind and matter, and (d) that it ascribes to the finite mind a 


power which is inconsistent with the doctrine of “ occasional 
*’ when fully developed. 

In various places, Malebranche expresses dissatisfaction 
with Descartes’ views as to the nature of ideas. The definitions 
of the term ‘‘ idea ” given by Malebranche and Descartes resemble 
one another very closely. Thus Malebranche says, an “‘idea”’ 
is “‘ ce qui est l’objet immediat ou le plus proche de l’esprit quand 
il apercoit quelque objet.’”’ For Descartes an ‘‘idea” is “‘ipsa 


24 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


res cogitata quatenus est objectivo in intellectu.”’ Descartes 
often uses the term “‘ idea ”’ to represent sensory qualities. Thus, 
he speaks of the ‘‘ sensation ” or “‘ idea ”’ (sensus vel idea) of colour 
and heat. Malebranche’s definition would seem to comprise 
under “‘idea”’ all that we are aware of when we know an object, 
and in the case of an object of the senses this should include 
sense-qualities. Here, however, a distinction of great importance 
for his general theory must be noted. The sense-qualities are 
on Cartesian principles modifications of. the soul, they belong, 
that is, not to the object apprehended, but to the subject. As 
such, they.are not known by way of idea, but by inner feeling w 
(sentiment intérieur). The term ‘idea ”’ in Malebranche’ s actual - 
usage is restricted to the apprehended essence of a thing, to 
what in later.phraseology might be described as the objective — 
element in knowledge, which, in the case of bodies, would, of 
course, be extension. Now, with regard to essences, Descartes — 
shows a good deal of hesitation. In some places (e.g. Méditations, 
V.) he speaks of them as eternal and immutable, independent of 
finite thought. In other places (e.g. Principles, Pt. I. LIX.) 
he regards them as abstractions or generalisations made by the 
individual, on the basis of his experience of individual objects. 
Further, essences, and it may be added laws, were regarded by 
Descartes as dependent upon the arbitrary will of God. Male- 
branche argues that, since they represent the essences of things, 
ideas are as such immutable, infinite, necessary, universal, and 
are, therefore, independent of any mind, finite or infinite. To 
this contention we will return later. Meanwhile, attention 
must be drawn to a further distinction which was familiar to 
some of the Cartesians, the distinction, namely, between the 
act of apprehending and the object or content apprehended. 
The former was designated sometimes by the term “perception,” 
the latter by the term ‘“‘idea.’’ There can be no doubt that 
underlying Malebranche’s theory of knowledge there was the 
implicit assumption that to knowa thing, the mind must, in some 
sense, be that thing, that, in other words, knowledge involved 
a kind of mystic union or identification of that which knows 
with that which is known. On such an assumption, only an 
omnipresent being, a being “‘ which was at the same time one 
and all things,’’ could know everything in and through himself. 
With regard to finite minds, on the other hand, the question 
arose, how acts which are necessarily temporal, changeable, finite, 


THE VISION OF ALL THINGS IN GOD 25 


could know ideas which are, as we have seen, eternal, immutable, 
infinite. In his various writings, Malebranche is constantly 
reverting to this question. How can a finite being have modifi- 
cations which represent the infinite? How can a particular 
being become so modified as to represent, for example, a figure 
in general, or the immensity of extension, or the infinite 
perfection? The finite being cannot be its own light. These 
words of St. Augustine are repeatedly reiterated by Male- 
branche in his discussions with Arnauld. It is clear that, along 
such a line of thought, the act or process of thinking is entirely 
separate from the content apprehended ; and it is likewise clear 
that it becomes difficult to say in what precisely that act consists. 
In the long run, it resolves itself into the mere presence of ideas to 
or the passive reception of them by, or a mystic union of them 
with, the finite soul. Malebranche adopts the solution of the 
problem that is furnished by St. Augustine. St. Augustine, too, 
was confronted with the necessity of accounting for the eternal 
validity and timeless character that attached to the rattones 
aterne, and he, too, distinguished between the act or process 
of knowing and the content or idea known. The former is an act or 
process of the individual who is aware, the latter is independent, 
necessary and unchangeable, and, as such, could not be due to the 
individual mind. The individual mind might, indeed, discover 
it, but could not be its source; man could not be a light unto 
himself. The solution of the difficulty St. Augustine found in 
the hypostatisation of truth and the ascription to truth of a 
reality over against the individual mind. Truth, the intelligible 
light, is God Himself. To explain the possibility of knowledge 
on the part of the finite mind, St. Augustine made use of the 
neo-Platonic conception of illumination, or radiation. The 
finite soul is illumined by the eternal light. We see the eternal 
truths in God, in whom and through whom all things have 
being and light, in the Eternal Wisdom, the Divine Logos, — 
Following Plotinus and the neo-Platonists, St. Augustine con- 
ceived of eternal truths as thoughts of the divine mind. The 
ideas were the archetypes and models of all that is created, the 
eternal immutable numbers, in accordance with which the 
world of change and succession was moulded, framed and 
regulated. True reality lay in them alone. All else exists or 
has being only so far as it participates in, or is an imitation of, 
the true reality of the mundus tntelligibilis. Herein he is 


eee 


26 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


followed very closely by Malebranche. The universal necessity 
and the immutability of truths can only be accounted for, accord- 
ing to Malebranche, by the fact that we all share or participate in 
a common reason, that we see all things in God, that man is an 
animal vationis particeps in the sense that he is united with 
the universal Reason, which is co-eternal and consubstantial 
with God, a reason which contains the essences of all things and 


_in which all things abide eternally. 


Along this line of reflection, Malebranche is driven to deepen 
the distinction between essence and existence, and to develop 
a theory of truth which goes beyond that of Descartes. While 
Descartes thought that truths were dependent upon the arbitrary 
will of God as “‘souverain législateur,”” Malebranche urges that 
such a view would make any real science impossible. The 
divine will itself is dependent upon the immutable order or 
relations which subsist between the ideas and which constitutes 
truth. God contains within Himself the “intelligible perfections ”’ 
of all things, possible or actual, and through them He knows 
their essences, while through His volitions He is aware of their 
existence. Truths are relations of equality or inequality between 
ideas. Thus, since it is true that 2-+2-= 4, and false that 
2-+ 2 = 5, there is a relation of eqality between 2-+ 2 and 4, 
and a relation of inequality between 2-+2 and 5. The 
relations are as immutable as the ideas themselves, and it is 
impossible that they should ever become false. 

Furthermore, Malebranche supplements this theory of truth 
with a theory of order or divine law which is the basis of 
morality. The relations which subsist between ideas are of 
two kinds. On the one hand, there are relations of equality 
or inequality in magnitude (gvandeur), and on the other hand 
there are relations of perfection. The perfections which are 
in God represent entities possible or actual, and are not all of 
equal value. Within the sphere of the ideas representing 
bodies and within the sphere of ideas representing minds there 
are infinite differences of degree of nobility. If it be asked 
how the infinite can admit of degree, Malebranche replies that 
there are similar relations between infinite perfections as 
between finite things, and that all infinites are not necessarily 
equal, Just as we can discover the relations which subsist 
between incommensurable numbers, though we are unable to 

t Eclaircissements, X, Méditations chrétiennes, I. 


THE VISION OF ALL THINGS IN GOD 27 


determine the relations in which they stand to unity, so we can 
determine to some extent the relations between the various 
infinite perfections. If these ideas are not of equal perfection, 
there must be an immutable and necessary order expressing 
relations of perfection. The order, however, is so far merely a 
speculative truth. But God loves His own substance necessarily. 
It is this love, indeed, which constitutes the Divine will, and the 
Divine will is determined in accordance with the immutable 
order of God’s perfections. It follows that this immutable 
order has the force of a law or moral imperative on God, and 
@ fortiort on us.% 

With the conception of an immutable order Malebranche 
connects his explanation of beauty. All beauty, at least the 
beauty which is the object of the intellect (esprit), is plainly 
an imitation of the immutable order. He instances painting 
and music. Sensuous beauty, however, is deprecated: ‘Il n’y 
a rien qui affaiblisse tant l’esprit et qui corrompe tant l’esprit.’’? 

The immutable order of ideas thus constitutes the divine 
reason, its wisdom and its justice. Not only so. Because our 
souls are intimately united with God, or, as Malebranche some- 
times puts it, because God isthe. place.of.spirits,.just.as space 
the place..of bodies,” the essences in the divine intellect are 
also the immediate objects of the human mind. In truth, 
finite minds were called into being only to know and love God, 
and they can know things only in and through God. The idea 
of the Infinite underlies all our knowledge and is presupposed 
init, Particular ideas are only participations in the general idea 
of the Infinite, just as created things are but imperfect participa- 
tions in the Divine Being. All our knowledge is a determination 
of the knowledge we have of God, just as our volitions are 
determinations of the general tendency towards the Good or 
the love which God bears towards Himself out of the necessity 
of His own being. The ultimate basis of all knowledge is not 
the conception of a collective sum of being, arrived at by an 
amalgamation of the ideas of particular beings, but rather the 
conception of the Infinite, i.e. reality as a whole, or the essence 
of reality, in which finite things only imperfectly participate. 
Descartes, too, had urged that the idea of the Infinite is prior 





t Tyaité de l’amour de Diew; Entretiens, VIII; Eclaircissements, X; 
Méditations chrétiennes, IV ; Traité de la morale. 
2 Méditations chrétiennes, IV 


28 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


to the idea of the finite and is presupposed in it. Malebranche 
strenuously maintains that at the basis of all finite thought 
there lies the idea of the Infinite, that it is only in and through 
God that we know anything at all. The acts of perception or 
of knowing are individual, peculiar to individuals, though they 
may resemble one another; but the truths which we know are 
common to all, immutable, necessary and eternal, and, therefore, 
can have their being only in the eternal and immutable essence 


of the divinity. 


Along the line of thought just sketched, Malebranche follows 
pretty closely the doctrine of St. Augustine. But he differs from 
that doctrine with regard to our knowledge of sensible objects. 
He points out that, although St. Augustine had given a better 
explanation of the relation between soul and body than any 
of his predecessors, he had, nevertheless, erred in attributing 
sensible qualities to bodies, and, he adds, that the difference 
between body and soul was not clearly known until quite recently 
(depuis quelques années). Elsewhere he tells us that he had 
learnt the doctrine of ideas from St. Augustine. Apparently 
his aim was to effect a synthesis between the latter doctrine 
and the teaching of Descartes with respect to the relation between 
mind and body and the distinction between primary and secondary 
qualities. According to St. Augustine, individual objects were 
known by means of the senses; and, although the knowledge 
thus obtained, concerned as it was with the world of change 
and generation, could not be called knowledge proper, but was 
merely opinion, no doubt was thrown on the existence of the 
sensible world. Indeed, in a sense, even the eternal truths 
could be legitimately applied to the particulars of sense. The 
laws of number, for example, were the norms which we can 
use in dealing with tones, figures and movements. Similarly 
we can judge of material things in accordance with the laws 
of space and geometrical figures. This position Malebranche 
could not accept; he had inherited a distrust of the senses 
from Descartes, and he accepted the distinction drawn by 
Descartes between primary and secondary qualities. With 
regard to the latter, the senses, Malebranche argued, plainly 
deceive us. Colours, for example, are not really spread out 
over the surface of bodies, as the senses lead us to believe, but are 
sensations or modifications of the soul. The senses have, indeed. 
the valuable function of warning us of the existence of bodies, 








THE VISION OF ALL THINGS IN GOD 29 


And the sensations which the soul experiences, on the occasion 
of their presence, serye as a “revelation ’’ of great importance 
for the preservation of life, but they are false witnesses with 
reference to the real nature of bodies; in order to become 
aware of that real nature, we require an idea which is repre- 
sentative, in other words, we can only know things by seeing 
their archetype in the mind of God. Malebranche was, therefore, 
led to conclude, as against St. Augustine, that we see all things, 
including bodies, in God, and not merely general truths. 


é 


B. Intelligible Extension. 


a»? 


In the earlier editions of the Recherche no use is made of this 
conception ; and, as Arnauld pointed out, Malebranche often 
speaks as though in the mind of God there were the ideas of all 
things.t Yet, since ideas are equivalent to the essences of things 
and the essence of all bodies is extension, the transition from 
ideas of sensible objects to one idea embracing them all was 
easily made. We shall see later how Malebranche endeavours 
to distinguish intelligible extension from the divine immensity 
on the one hand, and from what he calls local or material 
extension on the other. Meanwhile, we have to consider the 
way in which he conceives we arrive at a knowledge of 
particular objects by means of this idea.3_ Intelligible extension 
is the essence or idea or archetype of matter. It is that in 
God which is the source of all that is real in bodies, the substance 
of God, in so far as such substance is representative of bodies. 
It is that which, in the phraseology of a later time, might be 
called the objective element in our apprehension of the material 
world. Sensible qualities, on the other hand, are subjective, 
particular, and do not belong to the essence of matter. Neither 
can they be its modifications, for its modifications can only 
consist of spatial relations, or relations of distance, as Male- 
branche calls them, By diverse applications of this idea, we 
are able to obtain, on the one hand, a knowledge of intelligible 
figures, i.e. of the objects of the mathematical sciences, and on 


1 ** Toutes les créatures méme les plus matérielles et les plus tervresives 
sont en Dieu, quoi-que d’une maniére plus spirituelle.”’ 

2 See the Eclaircissements sur le troisieme livre de la Recherche, Ch. X, 

3 Ecl., Réponse & Regis, Ch. I1; Entretiens; Réponse & Arnauld. 


30 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


the other hand, a knowledge of sensible figures, i.e. of bodies. 
In the former case, we have a clear idea, a pure perception of 
intelligible extension, limited or bounded in certain definite 
ways. In the latter case, we have an idea of extension, similarly 
limited, but, in addition, there arise in the soul, owing to the 
laws of the conjunction of soul and body, certain modifications, 
i.e. feelings or sensations of colour and light. In other words, 
it is the sensible qualities, especially colour, which render it 
possible for intelligible extension to become sensible, and which 
enable us to get a knowledge of different objects out of the idea 
of extension which is the same throughout. Knowledge of 
objects, then, involves (a) an idea of extension, (b) a mass of 
' sensations, which we mistakenly ascribe to the extension, but 
which are, in truth, modifications of the soul. 

Our awareness of movement is explained after a similar 
fashion. Since the volitions of God do not change, intelligible 
extension is not movable even intelligibly,—that is to say, the 
parts of intelligible extension always retain the same relation 
of distance to one another. If, however, an intelligible figure, 
tendered sensible by means of colour, is taken successively from 
different parts of intelligible extension, or, in other words, if we 
attach the same sensation of colour successively to different 
parts, we shall see the figure successively in different places, 
it will appear to us to be moving, although intelligible extension 
remains unmoved; and we are thus enabled to become aware 
of movement in actually existing material extension, though 
in intelligible extension, or in the essence of extension, as it 
is in the mind of God, there is no movement. 


C. The Knowledge of Our Own Minds. 


With respect to the knowledge we have of ourselves, Male- 
branche differs profoundly from Descartes and the stricter 
Cartesians. He agrees with them as regards the certainty of 
the existence of soul and of its distinction from the body. But 
while they thought the soul was better known than extension, 
Malebranche is of opinion that of the nature of the soul we are 
utterly ignorant. To know a thing is to have a clear idea of it, 
to know the modifications of which it is capable, the relations 
in which it stands to other things. Now, we have no idea of 


THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR OWN MINDS 31 


the soul, we do not, except by experience, know of what 
modifications it is capable. For example, if we had never felt 
pleasure or pain, we should not know whether the soul was or 
was not capable of them. We do not know the relations of 
minds to one another, nor the relations between the various 
modifications of the soul, e.g. pleasure and pain, heat and colour, 
nor even the relation of similar colours to one another. Nor 
do we know the real relation of the soul to the body, nor the 
nature of their union; and we could not tell whether the soul 
in itself, and apart from the body, was or was not capable of 
memory. Since thereisin the mind of God an idea of all things, 
there must be an archetype and model of all created souls; but 
this idea or archetype God does not disclose to us. We know 
by inner feeling (conscience ou sentiment intérteur) that we are; 
we do not know what we are. 

Some recent writers, notably Cassirer! and Novaro,? discern 
in this view of Malebranche a determination to restrict the 
science of mind to the phenomenal. As a result of a critical 
analysis of the notion of substance, Malebranche, they think, 
is urging scientific investigators to give up the search for a 
“subject ’”’ lying beyond the world of phenomena, and to confine 
themselves to the empirical subject. I do not conceive that this 
view can be substantiated. No doubt, seeing that there is no idea 
of the soul, there can be no a@ prtort or deductive science of 
psychology. But it is entirely misleading to represent Male- 
branche as an advocate of empirical methods in psychology. On 
the contrary, he pursues the ontological method. It is in God 
that he seeks to determine the nature of the human mind. His 
doctrine of parallelism, for example, is not a scientific hypothesis 
resulting from observed facts, but is based upon his metaphysical 
conception of the impotence of finite creatures and the omnipo- 
tence of God. So, too, he determines the nature of human 
inclinations not by observation but in accordance with a 
standard laid down by him as to what they ought to be con- 
sistently with the real end of man, namely, the glory of God.3 
Moreover, it is difficult to see wherein Malebranche has criticised 
the notion of substance. He accepts it from Descartes and 
defines it in the same way as Descartes had defined it. He 

t Erkenninissproblem, I., p. 558. 


2 Die Philosophie des Nicolas Malebranche. 
3 Cf. Recherche, Bk. IV. 


32 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


assumes throughout that mind and body are substances; and, 
in his discussion of extension and matter, his point lies not in 
rejecting the notion of substance, but rather in proving that 
the substance of matter can be nothing but extension. Like- 
wise, so far as the soul is concerned, he does not deny its 
substantiality ; he merely protests that we have no clear idea of 
it. The real motive of Malebranche’s teaching in this connection 
was his fear of a pantheistic notion of the soul to which he felt 
himself drifting against his will. If we had an idea of ourselves, 
i.e. if we knew ourselves as in the mind of God, the conclusion 
that our individual existence is an illusion, that finite souls are 
but particular modifications of the divine or universal mind, 
could hardly have been resisted. 


D. Our Knowledge of Other Minds. 


Malebranche’s explanation of the way in which we come 
to know other minds than our own is still more precarious. It 
is clear that we cannot know them in themselves, or directly, 
for God alone can “ penetrate our minds and reveal Himself 
to us.” Neither can we know other minds through means of 
ideas ; for, as we have seen, although God contains within Him- 
self the archetypes of all minds, He does not disclose those 
archetypes to us. The third method of knowledge called by 
Malebranche “conscience”’ is unavailing here, since we can 
have no inner feeling of what is outside us. Considerations 
of this sort compel Malebranche to say that we know other 
minds only by conjecture. I guess or infer that there are other 
minds similar to my own, because I sometimes have thoughts, 
not occasioned by my will, and accompanied by certain sensa- 
tions, which lead me to conclude that they are due to beings re- 
sembling myself. It is true these sensations of sound and colour 
are entirely subjective, i.e. modifications of my mind, and do not 
warrant a belief even in the existence of bodies, and if they did, 
there would still be the possibility that God was making those 
bodies an occasion or instrument for the communication of ideas 
to my mind. Nevertheless, the ideas or thoughts which come 
to me in that way are such “as to lead me naturally to believe 
that there exists a mind similar to my own, which has con- 
ceived them and which has desired to communicate them to 


OUR KNOWLEDGE OF OTHER MINDS 33 


me.”’! It would appear, then, that the only ground for our 
belief in the existence of other minds is such “natural in- 
clination.”’ Yet, as we shall see, Malebranche, differing in 
this respect from Descartes, refused to rely on such a natural 
inclination when dealing with the existence of bodies, and was 
compelled in the end to have recourse to faith for a proof of their 
existence. The existence of other minds must, therefore, be 
at least as problematic as that of bodies. 


E. Our Knowledge of God. 


Respecting our knowledge of God, it is somewhat difficult 
to get a clear account. In a sense, as we have seen, all our 
knowledge is knowledge of God, that is to say, all our knowledge 
is a particular determination of our knowledge of the Infinite, 
just as all our love is a particular determination of the general 
tendency towards the Good, or of the infinite love wherewith 
God loves Himself. On the other hand, our knowledge of ideas, 
immutable and eternal though they be, is not equivalent to a 
knowledge of the divine substance in itself. For, although the 
ideas constitute the divine reason, yet they do so merely in so far 
as it is representative of created things, merely in so far as it is 
capable of being participated in, or imitated, by them. In know- 
ing, the intelligible perfections are communicated to us, but 
though we see them, we do not see God as He is in His 
absolute and individual reality. We see Him merely in so. 
far as His perfections are representative of finite things and 
under the conditions attendant on finitude. 

It follows from the nature of the Infinite Being that there 
can be no idea representative of Him. God, or the Infinite, 
can have no archetype; He is Himself His own archetype. 
All things are seen in and through the Infinite, but the Infinite 
can be seen only in itself. Essence and existence cannot here 
be separated. The idea of being has no meaning without being ; 
and, accordingly, the thought of the Infinite involves God’s 
existence, for since nothing finite can represent the Infinite, 
we can only think of Him in Himself. It follows from what 
has been said that when it is asserted that we see God in Himself, | 
the meaning is that we do so without the intervention of a 

1 Médiiations Métaphysiques, p. 68. 

3 


34 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


representative idea, but not that we really attain to His 
simplicity or discover His perfections as they are in themselves. 


F. Some Critical Considerations. 


This account of the nature of knowledge may be scrutinised 
from two points of view. In the first place, we may ask whether, 
granting its pre-suppositions and within its own limits, the 
theory offers a consistent account of the way in which we arrive 
at our knowledge of the world of experience. In the second 
place, we may inquire into the validity of the assumptions or 
presuppositions upon which it is based. 

(a) The first question that arises is as to what precisely is 
meant by the potential inclusion of all figures in intelligible exten- 
sion. Itisclear that figures are not actually contained in extension, 
as extension is contained in the mind of God, for, according to 
Malebranche, figures are only conceivable by means of movement, 
and God sees no movement in His essence. If, then, God is to see 
a certain figure of intelligible extension in order to apply it to 
our minds, He must limit intelligible extension, which in itself 
is figureless, in a certain way, but to do this He must have an 
idea of the figure which He wills to make. The general idea 
of intelligible extension helps us, therefore, here but little. 

The difficulties are enhanced in the case of our knowledge 
of particular objects, Such knowledge involves, as we have 
seen, (1) an idea of extension, limited in a definite way, and 
(2) a complex of sensations caused in us by God. Now, in the 
first place it may be asked, how God, who has no sensations 
in Himself, is able to call up sensations in my mind at all. 
Malebranche tells us that although God does not feel sensations 
yet He knows them, because He contains within Himself the 
archetypes of all minds, and can, therefore, see the modifications 
of which they are capable. But, since knowledge always implies 
immediate presence, and God can only know that which is 
‘‘ within Himself,” it is hard to discern how from the idea of the 
soul in which there is no pain or any other sensations, God 
can deduce the modifications of which such soul is capable. 
Malebranche is himself aware of this difficulty, and in the end 
he is compelled to take refuge in an asylum of ignorance. 
“My consciousness,” he says, ‘‘ teaches me as well as other 


SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 35 


men that I suffer pain, and my reason tells me that God and 
God alone can cause me to suffer. But since neither I nor 
anyone else has a clear idea of the soul or of the archetype in 
accordance with which God created it, I cannot throw any light 
on this difficulty.” ! 

In the second place, the sensations, being subjective, particular, 
not involved in the essence of the thing of which we are aware, 
ought prima facie to occur quite irregularly and contingently. 
How is it, then, that complexes of sensations always come 
together in my mind, in a fairly uniform manner, and not only 
in my mind, but also in other minds than mine? The answer 
is that God acts in accordance with certain necessary and 
universal laws,—in this connection in accordance with the laws 
of the communication of movement and of the conjunction of 
soul and body. Now, as we have seen, intelligible extension 
is similar throughout. What, then, determines God to call up 
in our minds, now one complex of sensations, and now another, 
must be the occasions, as Malebranche calls them, which regu- 
late the exercise of the invariable laws, such occasions being in 
this case nothing but the presence of objects. 

Accordingly, there must be objects differing in character that 
determine God to act in different ways on different occasions in 
accordance with universal laws. But if this be so, the existence of 
objects becomes a metaphysical necessity, since without them no 
explanation could be given of the order and regularity of experi- 
ence—a necessity which, as is well known, Malebranche refused 
to recognise. Further, the whole difficulty involved in our 
knowledge of the particular is not overcome, but only removed 
a stage further back. For if the order of our sensations be 
determined by objects as occasional causes, then God must know 
these objects, and must know them, not merely in their general 
character as extended, but as individual and particular. The 
knowledge of the particular is, therefore, still unexplained, at 
least so far as God is concerned, or at any rate is presupposed 
in the explanation of it that Malebranche offers. Arnauld’s 
story of the sculptor applies here. When the sculptor was 
requested by a friend for a picture or likeness of St. Augustine, 
he brought him a slab of marble and told him that he needed 
only to remove the superfluous matter to discover the likeness 
he wanted, forgetting that, in order to do this, it was necessary 

t Réflexions sur la Prémotion physique, IX, 


86 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


to know first of all what St. Augustine looked like. Arnauld 
pressed this difficulty with reference to the individual knower. 
In what way, he asked, can we know how to limit intelligible 
extension and clothe it with certain sensations so as to represent 
a certain object, unless we already have an idea of the object 
we want to know? Malebranche might conceivably have 
replied that it is not the individual who limits extension, and 
at the same time calls up sensations, but God or the Infinite 
who possesses ideas of all things, and also knows the modifications 
of which our soul is capable. But such a reply would have been 
unavailing against the difficulty urged above, for we have seen 
that in order to account for the regularity of our sensations, it is 
necessary that the universal laws in accordance with which God 
acts should be determined by occasional causes, that is to say, 
by the presence of objects of determinate character, which God 
must know in order to be able to act upon our minds in regular 
and orderly manner. Yet God can only know that which is 
within Himself, only His own ideas; and no ingenuity will 
render explicable, how out of these ideas—universal in character 
as they are—either the Infinite mind or our minds can arrive 
at a knowledge of the particular objects of our experience. 
Clearly, then, Malebranche did not succeed in effecting the 
synthesis between the Augustinian or neo-Platonic doctrine of 
Ideas and the teaching of Descartes, which he desired in order 
to reach a comprehensive theory of a vision of all things in 
God. Our knowledge of the particular is so far from being 
explained that the question is forced repeatedly upon Male- 
branche whether the material world exists at all. God, His 
ideas, and the relations between them constitute the intelligible 
world; the soul and its modifications account for the sensible 
world. What need, therefore, is there for an external world 
to which no intelligible meaning can be assigned, a material 
extension which it is difficult to define, and which can hardly 
be distinguished from the intelligible extension, which alone 
is real? In dealing with this question, Malebranche reasserts 
the arguments used by Descartes in the same connection, e.g. the | 
delusive character of the senses, etc. Malebranche, however, is 
not, and cannot be, satisfied with Descartes’ solution. According 
to the latter, my passive faculty of perception, i.e. of receiving 
ideas of sensible things, involved the existence of a corresponding 
t Médiiations, VI. 


SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 37 


active faculty of forming or producing these ideas, and such 
active faculty could not exist in me, seeing that ideas are produced 
in my mind without my contributing to their production, and 
often against my will. It must, therefore, Descartes argued, 
exist in a substance other than myself, which must be either 
a corporeal entity or God. But seeing that we have a strong 
persuasion that ideas arise from corporeal objects, and seeing 
that God has not given us any faculty whereby we can discover 
that such is not the case, it is clear that God would be a deceiver, 
if our natural inclinations did not lead us to the truth. This 
argument cannot, however, satisfy Malebranche, for, in the first 
place, he will not allow that corporeal things have an active power 
of exciting ideas in our minds, seeing that the only active power 
lies in God; and, in the second place, the argument based on 
the fact that God is no deceiver does not amount to a clear 
proof. We must not believe anything beyond what we are 
compelled to believe. Thus, when we see corporeal things we 
must conclude only that we see them, and that these visible or 
intelligible things really exist. Yet what reason have we for 
saying positively that there exists outside of us a material world 
resembling the intelligible world which we see? It is true that 
we see corporeal things as external to us. Still, do we not see 
the light outside us, and in the sun, and is it not, nevertheless, 
clear that light is a modification of our soul and does not exist 
in the external object at all? Our natural inclination is not 
_ evidence. Indeed, as Malebranche frequently points out, no 
clear and incontrovertible proof can be given of the existence 
of corporeal things. On the contrary, a demonstration may 
be given of the impossibility of such a proof, apart from what 
is offered us by faith. For a clear proof consists in the establish- 
ment of a necessary connection between the ideas which are 
being compared; and there is no such necessary connection 
between the infinitely perfect being and any created entity. 
God is abundantly sufficient unto Himself. ‘‘ Matter, therefore, 
is not a necessary emanation from the Divinity.” 

If corporeal things do exist, they must depend upon the 
volition of God ; but whereas all God’s volitions are dependent 
upon the immutable order of His perfections, and are, so to 
speak, the expressions of the relations subsisting necessarily 
between the divine ideas, the particular volition to create the 
world is not a necessary consequence of the divine nature, for 


388 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


the notion of the infinitely perfect being involves, according to 
Malebranche, no necessary relation to a created world, and indeed 
excludes the possibility of such a relation. The existence of 
corporeal things is, therefore, arbitrary, and cannot be rigorously 
deduced from the nature of God. To save the existence of 
the material world Malebranche is compelled to have recourse 
to faith. There is no other way than revelation to assure us 
that God has willed to create corporeal things. ‘“‘ To be fully 
convinced of the existence of corporeal things it is necessary not 
only to prove that there is a God, and that He is no deceiver, 
but also that He has assured us that He really did create them, 
and of this I find no proof in the writing of Descartes.”! Proof 
of this latter point can be found only in the Bible and the doctrines 
of the Church.? 

It would, I think, be a mistake to suppose that Malebranche’s 
belief in the existence of matter was philosophically insincere, - 
or that when he speaks of creation he does so only to avoid 
conflict with the religious opinions of the time. Such was 
apparently the opinion of Novaro; but, as Pillon3 points out, 
Malebranche did not divorce reason from faith, but considered 
them to be closely connected, and spoke quite seriously of a 
union of two substances in man. And, as we shall see later, 
it was, in Malebranche’s opinion, the doctrine of creation which 
saved him from the pantheism of Spinoza. 

Nevertheless, it is clear that the existence of a material world 
becomes exceedingly problematic, and Berkeley, 4 referring to the 
followers of Malebranche, was justified in asserting ‘“‘ that they 
should suppose an innumerable multitude of created beings 
which they acknowledge are not capable of producing any effect 
in nature, and which, therefore, are made to no manner of 
purpose, since God might have done everything as well without 
them ; this, though we should allow it possible, must yet be 
a very unaccountable and extravagant supposition.”’ Similar - 
objections were urged by Locke, Bayle, Arnauld, and De Mairan, 
all of whom pointed out that the material world could have no 
real place in Malebranche’s system, and, in addition, it ought 
to be noted that, though Malebranche does retain that world, 
he yet deprives it of all real power and of any sort of independent 
being. 

1 Fel., VI. * Entretiens, VI. 8. 
3 L’Année philosophique, 1893. 4 Principles, § LIII. 


SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 39 


(b) So far I have dealt with Malebranche’s theory of knowledge 
from the point of view of his own system. It is necessary now 
to examine its presuppositions and assumptions. In this con- 
nection, it will be well to consider the main arguments urged 
against Malebranche’s doctrine by Arnauld, in his book Des vrates 
et des fausses 1dées, and other writings. Arnauld detects most 
of the vulnerable points of the doctrine of representative percep- 
tion, and furnishes a foundation for a thoroughgoing realistic 
theory of knowledge. 

The main burden of Arnauld’s criticism consists in the 
contention that the doctrine of representative ideas is based 
upon an assumption which is never submitted to examination, 
the assumption, namely, that direct knowledge of real things is 
impossible, and that therefore, a ¢ertium quid, a representative idea, 
is needed to mediate between the mind and the objects known. 
Having assumed the need of “‘étres représentatifs,’’ Malebranche, 
he points out, proceeds to inquire where they are to be placed, 
and by a method of exclusion or elimination concludes that they 
can be possessed by God alone. But the assumed impossibility 
of direct perception, Arnauld maintains, is really based upon a 
number of naive prejudices, none of which can stand the light 
of critical scrutiny. 

In the first place, it is taken for granted that the mind can 
only know ideas, can only know that which is like itself spiritual 
in character. This belief rests, however, on the unproved 
assumption that like can only know like. But what reason is 
there for thus restricting the realm of the knowable? Prima 
facie only non-being is incapable of being known, and to be know- 
able is a property inseparable from all that. has being. It is, 
therefore, a mere prejudice to insist that the soul can only know 
ideas. 

In the second place, it is supposed that corporeal things 
cannot be known directly, because what is known must act 
upon the mind, and corporeal things are incapable of such action. 
But this again is based upon the implicit assumption that nothing 
can be known by the mind except that which can act upon it. 
How do we know that this is the case? To be known does 
not on the face of it involve an active operation at all. 

In the third place, it is assumed that the mind is passive, 


1 Cf. Guvres philosophiques de Antoine Arnauld, 1843, ed. Jules Simon. 
This volume contains also Malebranche’s Réponses. 


40 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


and can, therefore, have no knowledge on its own account. 
Such a contention is, however, inconsistent with Malebranche’s 
own teaching. For will and understanding are not on his own 
showing separate entities, but manifestations or expressions 
of the soul; and, accordingly, the admission that the mind is 
active in volition involves the admission that the mind as such 
is active. Moreover, when it is said that the mind is active, the 
“Meaning is that it has the capacity of knowing or thinking, 
and it is really quite as unreasonable to ask how the mind can 
think as it is to ask why extension is divisible, since the capacity 
of thinking and divisibility constitute the formal cause or nature, 
respectively, of mind and extension. 

In the fourth place, it is argued that what is known must 
be present to the mind or intimately united with it, and, since 
corporeal things cannot be so present to the mind, they cannot 
be directly known. This is based on an assumption that know- 
ledge involves or consists in a kind of mystic union of the 
knower with the known. The word “ presence ”’ is, however, 
woefully ambiguous. The content of an act of knowledge is no 
doubt present or contained in that act. But such “ objective 
presence ’’ must not be interpreted after the manner of local 
presence or inclusion, on the analogy of an image or picture. 
For the relationship expressed in the term “‘ objective presence,”’ 
i.e. presence as a content known, is a relationship peculiar to the 
mind,—that indeed which constitutes its very essence,—and it 
cannot be expected that we should find analogous relations 
outside the mind. The word “ presence ’”’ is really misleading, 
and properly understood, the principle that to be known an 
object must be present to the mind is a bare tautology, amounting 
merely to the assertion that in order to know a thing it is 
necessary that the thing should be known. 

Arnauld is, in fact, prepared to give an analysis of the nature 
of apprehension (perception, as he calls it), which will obviate 
the need of assuming “‘étres représentatifs.’’ Every idea, he urges, 
though in itself a unitary whole, has yet two relations. In the 
first place, it is related to the soul which it modifies, i.e. it in- 
volves an act or process of the mind; in the second place, it is 
related to the thing known, in so far as it is ‘‘ objectively,’ i.e. as 
a content of the mind, present to the mind. Apprehension is always 
the apprehension of a content. The act of apprehending includes 
or contains the content apprehended. But these two relations do 


SOME CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 41 


not entitle us to speak of two different entities. We are not, 
in other words, entitled to hypostatise the idea in so far as it 
indicates the objective presence of an object to the mind, and 
regard it as something which has an existence, prior to all 
perception, and which must act upon the mind, in order to be 
perceived by it. In an act of knowing there is only one thing 
to which existence ought to be ascribed, the modification, 
namely, of the soul, the process or event of knowing; but though 
this modification is the perception of something which is known, 
we are not concerned here with an additional entity, forming 
part of the sum of existence. The idea of the sun is the sun in 
so far as it is known, secundum esse quod habet in cognoscente ; 
it is a way of knowing the sun, it is the sun in so far as it is in 
my mind, not formally as it is in the sky, but objectively, ie. 
as a content of an act of knowledge. But it is absurd to interpret 
this notion of an “intelligible ’’ sun, or an idea of the sun, as 
being a real existing object, standing between the mind and 
the real external sun, and rendering a knowledge of the latter 
for ever impossible. 

It follows that the act of apprehending and the content or 
idea apprehended, though distinguishable, are not separable, but . 
are rather aspects of one and the same concrete fact. As against 
‘this position, Malebranche had argued, that while ideas are 
universal in content, eternal and immutable, the acts of the 
individual finite mind are temporal and changing, and from 
_ this disparity between the ideas and the acts of knowledge he 
concluded that they must be separate entities, the former existing 
in the mind of God, the latter being modifications of the finite 
subject. But, Arnauld urges, if it be recognised that ideas are 
not separate existents, in some mysterious manner fused with 
the mind, but that they are rather parts of a system of truth, 
ways in which we arrive at a knowledge of reality, there is no 
reason why an act which is individual should not be capable of 
apprehending that which is not individual. Malebranche’s diffi- 
culty is due, in other words, to his hypostatisation of ideas and to 
a false interpretation of the nature of ‘ objective ’’ presence. In 
another connection,! Arnauld points out that the universality and 
eternity of truths does not warrant us in hypostatising these 
truths and in regarding them as “ étres subsistants.’’ ‘‘ When 
we say a thing is always and everywhere, we may mean two 

t Régles du bon sens, Giuvres, Tome XL, 


2? 


42 MALEBRANCHE’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 


things. We may mean that it has positive existence in all 
places and throughout all times, and in this sense God only 
can be said to be everywhere. On the other hand, we may mean 
that it is not attached to any place or time, and in this sense, 
every universal is always and everywhere. It is in this sense that 
the truth 2 +3 =5 is ubique et semper, and from this it does 
not follow that it is in God.’’ So with eternity. In one sense, 
the term is applicable to a being that has existence always, 
without beginning or end, and none but God can be eternal in 
this sense. On the other hand, “‘ many things are called eternal 
which are only in our mind, which are not existing beings, for 
the simple reason that they are not attached to any time. 
General terms, such as man in general, or a circle in general, 
etc., are eternal in this sense.’” Arnauld might have added that 
this is no less true of a content which is particular than of one 
which is universal. In neither case is the idea a separate exist- 
ence; in both cases the act or process of knowing is concrete 
and particular, but this circumstance does not preclude it from 
apprehending that which is of different nature from itself. 

To Malebranche, however, the credit is due of deepening 
the distinction between essence and existence and of laying stress 
on the universality and necessity of truth and its independence 
of the arbitrary will of God. He recognised that the essences 
of things are not to be identified with their existence. At the 
same time, this negative determination was insensibly trans- 
muted by him into a mysterious and baffling positive. He tended 
to hypostatise the essences and to make them into veritable 
existences, forgetful of the fact that when this is done, they 
can, in the first place, no longer serve the purpose of accounting 
for the universality of knowledge, since as existences they cannot 
but be particulars; and, in the second place, that they stand 
between the mind and the world of particular, concrete fact, 
and render a knowledge of the latter for ever impossible. In 
other words, if the essences or ideas be regarded as having a 
transcendent existence, they are open to the charge which 
Aristotle brought against Plato’s Ideas, that they afford no 
explanation, on the one hand, of the possibility and nature of 
knowledge, or, on the other hand, of the existence of a world of 
particulars. : 


Part III 
MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


A. The Nature and Attributes of God. 


Underlying Malebranche’s theory of knowledge, and indeed 
the whole of his philosophy, is the thought, that not only do 
we see all things in God, but that in a sense all things are in 
God. He himself describes his philosophy as a commentary 
on St. Paul’s text, “‘in Him we live, and move, and have our 
being.”’ 

God is described by him often in terminology which would 
identify the divine nature with mere indeterminate being, e.g. 
the being of beings (étre des étres), the universal being. At other 
times, God is described as ens realissimum, containing within 
Himself all that is real in finite things, actual and possible, 
though not exhausted in them, and not partaking in their 
limitations. Using Platonic language, he speaks of finite 
things as made up of being and non-being, while in the infinitely 
perfect being there is no non-being. God possesses whatever 
there is of positive reality in all things, without their limita- 
tions. The divine being is, at the same time, one and many, 
comprising an infinity of different perfections, each con- 
taining all the others without any real distinction, and all 
constituting a perfect unity. 

Malebranche conceived the existence of God as an imme- 
diate certainty. While Descartes had proved the existence of 
God by a process of inference from the idea of God, as from 
effect to cause, or from essence to existence, in the sense that 
existence being a perfection, it is involved in the idea of that 
which is the most perfect, Malebranche urged that no process, 
of inference is here required, that to think of God is sufficient 


to prove God’s existence. For although we know all things 
43 


44 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


in and through ideas or representative beings, we cannot know 
' God in the same way. There is no idea of God, no archetype 
which can be representative of Him. Being and the idea of 
being, existence and essence, are here identical. There can 
be no “ étre représentatif ’’ of God other than God Himself. 

God, or the Infinite, containing within Himself the perfec- 
tions of all things, and yet remaining a simple and individual 
essence, is incomprehensible to the human mind. Neverthe- 
less, we may, by reference to the idea of an infinitely perfect 
being, discover some of His attributes. In the first place, we 
may inquire whether God can be described as res cogitans. 
God, as has been already indicated, contains within Himself the 
orders of truth and righteousness, and has, therefore, knowledge 
and volition. What precisely the nature of these processes 
may be we cannot tell, even in the case of finite minds, since 
there is no idea of the soul. But it is clear that there are im- 
portant differences between our modes of knowing and those 
of God. Thought for us involves, at any rate, the distinction 
between the act or process of thinking and the content, or idea, 
as Malebranche calls it, of which by means of the former we 
become aware. Now, this idea is in the mind of God, while 
the act or perception is peculiar to each individual. Is there, 
then, a similar duality in the case of God? It would appear 
that in God the ideas are in some incomprehensible manner 
fused and united in His single essence, allowing of no distinction, 
and in that case self-consciousness is not applicable to God’s 
essence. If, on the other hand, emphasis be laid upon that 
aspect of Malebranche’s teaching in which he makes use of the 
conception of a hierarchy of ideas, constituting the two orders 
of truth and righteousness, it becomes still more obvious that God 
is not a self-conscious personality, but a system of Ideas, such 
as we find in the philosophy of Plato. 

With regard to the will, similar difficulties arise. Male- 
branche realises that the Divine volition cannot consist in a deter- 
mination by anything outside of God, and he urges that it is 
rather the invincible love which God has for His own substance, 
the satisfaction and beatitude which He finds in His own per- 
fection. Now, will, as we are familiar with it, in our own 
experience, involves always the presence of ideas, together 
with the recognition of a reality with which those ideas stand 
in contrast ; we have, as Mr. Bradley puts it, an existing not- 


THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD 45 


self, together with the idea of its change. But anything of 
this kind is utterly precluded in the case of God, as conceived 
by Malebranche. Again, God is eternal, immutable, and the. 
acts of God’s volition are likewise eternal and immutable. Yet 
acts which do not involve any change are simply not acts, as’ 
we know them. It seems clear that, of God, as conceived by 
Malebranche, we may say, as Spinoza said of Substance, that 
“the intellect which would constitute the essence of God must 
differ toto celo from our will and intellect, nor can they agree 
in anything save in name, nor any more than the Dog as a 
celestial constellation and the dog as a barking animal agree.”’ 1 

In the second place, it may be asked whether God can be 
described as res extensa. God is said by Malebranche to possess 
the attribute of immensity. Thereby the omnipresence of 
God is indicated, His power of being one and many, of pene- 
trating all things and conferring upon them being, His posses- 
sion of all perfections in indissoluble, distinctionless unity. . 
And Malebranche tries to throw some light on this incomprehen- 
sible attribute by comparing it with eternity. God is eternal, 
and, although times and moments succeed one another in His 
eternity, He is all that He is, without temporal succession. So 
God is immense, and though corporeal things are extended in 
His immensity, He Himself is not extended. He fills all His 
substance without local extension. In His existence and dura- 
tion there is no past and no future; in His immensity there 
are no parts and no divisions. God is all that He is whenever 
and wherever He is. He is not so much in the world as the 
world is in Him, just as eternity is not so much in time as time 
is in eternity. Malebranche insists that by the omnipresence 
of God he does not mean merely that God exercises activity 
everywhere; the analogy of the presence of the soul in the 
body does not seem to him appropriate. In truth, the soul 
is not in the body, nor the body in the soul. Both alike are 
in the divine substance, minds in the divine reason and bodies 
in the divine immensity. 

The divine immensity is not to be identified with intelli- 
gible extension. The former, indicating as it does the mystic 
presence in God of all perfections in indissoluble unity, is quite 
incomprehensible to the finite mind. The latter, on the other 
hand, is essentially, as its name indicates, intelligible. It is 

t Ethics, Pt. I, prop. 17. Scholium. 


46 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


the idea of matter, that in God which is representative of cor- 
poreal things, the ground of all mathematical relations, the 
archetype or model, in accordance with which God created 
the material world. Intelligible extension is thus distinguished, 
firstly, from the divine immensity, and, secondly, from local, 
material, or created extension. In his discussion with Arnauld 
and De Mairan, Malebranche was driven to elaborate these dis- 
tinctions in order to free himself from the charge of Spinozism 
which these critics brought against him. Arnauld urged that 
it follows from Malebranche’s teaching that God is extended, 
or that He contains extension within Himself, ‘ formally ” 
and not merely ‘“‘ eminently.”” Malebranche himself had argued 
that the idea of extension could not be in the finite soul, on 
the ground that this would make the soul material. Yet, 
“‘ objectively,’’ or as a content of mind, the idea of extension 
might well be in the finite mind, without the latter thereby 
becoming extended or material. It followed, therefore, that by 
presence in the mind, Malebranche, when he argued in the way 
indicated, must have meant formal or actual presence, but in 
that case to say that God contains intelligible extension in 
His mind, amounts to saying that God is extended. Male- 
branche replied that extension exists in God, not merely in 
ideal fashion, but effectively (effectivement), yet he will not have 
it that it exists in God formally. It is clear, however, that 
he is here quite uncertain of his ground, and ultimately he takes 
refuge in the unknowableness of God. God, he says, contains 
the idea of matter “eminently,” but this idea is not a modi- 
fication of God, for God can have no modifications. Again, 
the idea or essence of matter is not identical with the existence 
of material things. It is, indeed, characteristic of God’s infini- 
tude that He contains within Himself all that is real in finite 
things, but finite things are not modes of His being, but rather 
imperfect imitations of their essences in His mind. 

The subject is further dealt with in the ninth Méditation, 
the Enitretien d’un Philosophe avec un Philosophe chinots, and 
above all in the correspondence with De Mairan.t Is not, De 
Mairan asked, local or material or created extension the model 
or “‘affection’’ of a substance, a substance which in itself 


1 Cf. Méditations Métaphysiques et Correspondance de N. Malebvanche avec 


J. J. Dortous de Maivan, sur des sujets métaphysiques. Ed. by Feuillet de 
Conches, 1841. 


THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD 47 


is not locally extended but which admits of modifications, 
in the form of locally extended bodies, and is not intelligible 
extension, the substance of which they are modifications ? 
Admittedly the idea of extension is infinite, eternal, necessary; 
but since we can assert of anything that which is clearly involved 
in the idea of it, it follows that extension is identical with God, 
for otherwise there would be an infinite substance, which yet 
is not God. Moreover, this infinite substance must be the 
essence of corporeal things, unless it can be shown that the 
extension which is involved in our conception of corporeal 
things is an extension other than that which is called by Male- 
branche intelligible. If you deny that we-can infer the nature 
of a thing from the idea which is representative of it, then it 
would no longer follow that God Himself is infinite. On the 
other hand, if, per impossibile, it is maintained that intelligible 
extension is merely an idea of God, an idea without an ideatum, 
then of what avail is it to argue about the existence of cor- 
poreal things? Is it not clear that there can in such case be 
no corporeal things, and that the revelation of which Male- 
branche speaks is deceptive in their regard ? 

Malebranche’s answer is a troubled and evasive one. 
Spinoza’s mistake lay, according to him, in confusing the ideas 
of things with the things themselves. No doubt the idea of 
extension, i.e. intelligible extension, is eternal, necessary, infinite, 
and, therefore, in God, is in fact God, for all that is in God is 
consubstantial with Him; but created extension is neither 
eternal nor infinite, and so far from its possessing necessary 
existence, we only know that it exists by means of revelation, 
natural or supernatural. From the idea of extension the 
transition cannot be made to the existence of an infinite exten- 
sion. Only the properties of a thing can be deduced from its 
idea, not its existence; for the existence is not a part of its 
essence, but is dependent upon the will of God. The created 
world is not a modification of God, for the Infinite can have 
no modifications. Not only so. Particular bodies are not 
modifications of the idea of extension, but are parts of created 
extension. The ‘“‘ modes” of extension are its figures, yet it is 
meaningless to speak of Rome and Paris as modifications of 
extension. Spinoza is making an incorrect use of the conception 
of ‘‘ mode,” and his identification of intelligible with created 
extension is due to his unwarranted rejection of the notion of 


48 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


creation. Malebranche here ignores the proofs furnished by 
Spinoza of the impossibility of creation consistently with the 
definition of Substance. And he himself often speaks of finite 
things as participations in the divine substance. It is difficult 
to see what advantage this word has over the term ‘‘ mode ”’ or 
‘“‘ modification.” Participations are, no doubt, distinguished by 
him from parts, but then Spinoza would never have said that 
Substance had parts, and indeed he showed clearly that it could 
have none. All that Malebranche says with regard to the 
divine immensity applies equally well to Spinoza’s notion of 
Substance. The former term is, in fact, used by Spinoza in 
the Cogitata Metaphysica. The comparison of immensity with 
eternity and the denial of temporal succession and local extended- 
ness to God find a close parallel in the distinction that Spinoza 
makes between duration and eternity and his description of 
quantity, number, etc., as mere aids to the imagination and 
as not belonging to Substance sub specie eternitatis.t Once 
more, Malebranche argues, as we have seen, that from the idea 
of infinite extension, we cannot infer that the extension of which 
the world is made is infinite, despite the Cartesian principle 
that what we can assert of anything whatever is involved in the 
idea representative of it. But, if from an idea admittedly infi- 
nite we cannot infer necessary existence, then doubt might 
be thrown on the existence and infinitude of God, and even 
if a plausible case could be made out for regarding the idea 
of God as an exception in this respect, it would still follow that 
if material extension exists, it must be infinite, since infinity 
is involved in the idea which is representative of it. But, as 
we have seen, Malebranche admits, although on the evidence 
of faith, the existence of the material world, and if the material 
world exists there must exist an infinite substance outside of 
God, which on Malebranche’s premises should be impossible. 
It is true he denied the infinity of the material world, but it 
is hard to see how the denial can be justified. It would seem, 
then, that Malebranche does not succeed in refuting the argu- 
ment of de Mairan, that, logically developed, the theory of 
intelligible extension leads to the doctrine of Spinoza. Male- 
branche himself appears to have been aware of the weakness of 
his position, for the later letters are full of evasions, and in the 
end he frankly appeals to faith: ‘‘ Le vraie fidéle n’écoute 
t Ethics, I. prop. 15. Scholium, and Letiey to Myer. 


THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD 49 


pas seulement ceux qui attaquent la foi, de peur d’étre 
embarassé par des objections qu'il ne pourroit pas resoudre; car 
perdre la foi, c’est tout perdre, et la foi ne vient que par la 
revelation et non de la speculation des idées claires, des mathe- 
matiques et des nombres.’’! The vital point of Malebranche’s 
answer consists, however, in his insistence upon the fact of 
creation. Yet, in dealing with this notion, he simply takes 
refuge in the unknowableness and omnipotence of God. Seeing 
the idea of extension within himself, God can create something 
that corresponds to it. How the will of God has such power 
we cannot say, since we have no clear idea of what constitutes 
the divine power and will. Thus the whole world of particular 
fact is left unexplained. It is, moreover, difficult to see why 
the volition to create the world should be arbitrary, while all 
other volitions of God are determined by the immutable order 
of His perfections; and this question seems to be all the more 
troublesome, because Malebranche was in the end compelled 
to suggest means—though theological in character—whereby | 
the created world has been made worthy of the divine will, 
so that the inquiry is forced upon us whether, this being so, 
the creation of the world must not be regarded as following 
necessarily from the divine nature. 

To return now to the further enumeration of God’s attri- 
butes. Since God is infinitely perfect and contains all reality 
‘within Himself, He is independent and cannot be determined 
by anything outside Himself. It follows that He is also 
unchangeable. In the thoughts and volitions of God there is 
no succession ; He knows all and wills all by an eternal, immu- 
table act. The whole world-process is due to general laws 
established by God from all eternity. The changes observable 
in the universe are due not to changes in these laws, but to the 
action of “‘occasional’’ causes. The difficulty of this position 
will be dealt with later. Meanwhile, it is to be observed that, 
in Malebranche’s view, the immutability of God does not con- 
flict with His freedom. The volitions of God are determined 
by the immutable order of His perfections, yet this means that 
God is determined not by outward circumstances but by. the 
excellence of His own nature. Malebranche rejects the “‘ liberty 
of indifference ’’ that was ascribed to God by Descartes. ‘Ce 


1 Méditations Métaphysiques et Correspondance de N. Malebranche avec 
J. J. Dovious de Maivan, 1841, p. 147. 


4 


50 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


faux principe que Dieu n’a pas d’autre régle en ses desseins 
que sa pure volonté, répand des ténébres si épaisses qu’il con- 
fond le bien avec le mal, le vrai avec le faux, et fait de toutes 
choses un chaos ot l’esprit ne connait plus rien.’”?! God cannot 
will that what is false shall be true, nor can He act in a way 
which does not conform with the immutable order of His per- 
fections—a contention which has, as already noted, important 
bearing upon Malebranche’s view of knowledge. 


B. God’s Relation to the World. 


Having dealt with the attributes of God, as He is in Him- 
self, at any rate in so far as the human mind can reach that 
which is in essence incomprehensible, Malebranche further tries 
to deal with God in His “‘ ways,’”’ and to show how God goes, 
so to speak, outside Himself. Here he is profoundly anxious 
lest he should be involved in the meshes of the “‘ wretched ”’ 
(le misérable) Spinoza. ‘‘ We are,’’ so Aristes represents Spinoza 
as Maintaining, ‘‘but we are not made. Weare a necessary emana- 
tion from the divine being. We form a part of the divine being. 
The infinitely perfect being is the universe, is the assemblage of 
all that is.’’ It was to escape from this danger that Malebranche 
was so strenuous in emphasising the notion of creation. He 
tries to prove that the universe is not uncreated. Some- 
times he argues that matter cannot be a necessary emanation 
from the divinity, because God is fully self-sufficient—an argu- 
ment which is certainly far from convincing, since, if matter 
is in some way involved in the divine nature, it would consti- 
tute part of the abundance wherewith He is satisfied and not 
something external to Him and requiring Him to come out of 
Himself in order to attain satisfaction. Similar considerations 
apply, perhaps, to the argument insisted on by Malebranche 
in the ninth Méditation, the Entretien avec un Philosophe chinots, 
and elsewhere. If matter were uncreated, he urges, God could not 
move it, for He could only move it if He had knowledge of it, but 
He can only know it if He Himself gave it being, seeing that 
nothing can act upon Him, or illumine Him from the outside. 
Movement and creation, in fact, alike depend upon God and 
involve an activity of the same kind. Movement means suc- 
cessive creation, on the part of God, of a corporeal thing in 
different places. God does not make things and then com- 

: Cf. Eel. ala Recherche, VIII, X. 


GOD’S RELATION TO THE WORLD 51 


municate to them a moving force. The moving force of bodies 
consists in the efficacy of Him who gives them being inces- 
santly and successively in different places. All activity, how- 
ever small, is divine and infinite. It follows, then, that if God 
did not create matter, He would not be able to move it, and 
that either there would be no movement or change, or else 
change would have no producing cause, and there would be no 
wisdom regulating it. It would not be difficult to show that, 
even accepting Malebranche’s doctrine of creation, it would 
be no easy matter to reconcile change and movement with the 
immutability which is one of God’s attributes. No doubt 
this obstacle remains in any pantheistic doctrine. But the 
above arguments surely have force only against the position 
that matter is uncreated and likewise something foreign or 
external to the divine substance, in which case, certainly, God 
could neither know nor move it. They do not apply as against 
the view that extension is an integral element in or, as in 
Spinoza’s metaphysic, an Attribute of the divine Substance, 
for in that case no action from the outside world would be 
required to render it possible for God either to know or to move 
matter. As regards the whole doctrine of creation, Malebranche 
was in the end compelled, as we have seen, to take refuge in an 
asylum of ignorance. We have no right to ask, he urges, how 
being can come from non-being. God is omnipotent, and, having 
the idea of extension within Himself, He can create something 
_ that corresponds to it. Though Malebranche emphatically re- 
pudiated all arbitrary factors when dealing with the nature of 
truth, he is, strangely enough, content to base his explanation 
of the entire world of particular facts upon ‘“‘ arbitrariness of 
production ”’ on the part of God. 


C. The Theory of Occasionalism. 


To understand more fully the relation, as Malebranche con- 
ceived it, between God and the created world, we must 
deal with his doctrine of causality. In this connection, his 
work exhibits close continuity, logical and historical, with that 
of Descartes. The very definition which Descartes gave of 
substance, as a thing which exists in such a way as to need 
nothing else in order to exist, showed that there could only be 
one substance. Descartes, indeed, pointed out that the term 
“substance”? does not apply to God and finite things univo- 


52 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC + 


cally. He was, however, content to leave the problem thus 
raised by saying that finite things exist only by the concourse 
of God.t The dependence of finite things upon God becomes 
apparent also in Descartes’ doctrine of continuous creation. 
Time, according to Descartes, is discrete in nature, and its 
parts are mutually independent, so that “‘from the fact that 
we are now it does not necessarily follow that we shall be a 
moment afterwards, unless some cause, namely, that which 
produces us, shall, as it were, continuously reproduce us, i.e. 
conserve us.’ This argument was, as we shall see, used by 
the Cartesians in support of the doctrine of occasionalism. 
Further, Descartes regarded matter as identical with passive 
extension, and, therefore, as in itself inert. Movement had 
thus to come to it from the outside. Movement, or transfer- 
ence of a body from one vicinity to another, was distin- 
guished from force which was the cause of such transference. 
The general cause of all movement was God, who created matter 
along with motion and rest, and who now by His “ concourse ”’ 
alone preserves in the whole the same amount of motion and 
rest that He had originally assigned to it. In addition there 
were particular causes, “‘ by which it happens that each of the 
parts of matter acquires the motion that it had not before.” 
Descartes does not explain what precisely is meant by the “ con- 
course of God’; and it is easy to see that, logically developed, 
what he is here saying would lead to the view that God is the 
only force,and that corporeal things are merely instruments of 
the divine activity. 

Finally, there is yet another line of consideration followed 
by Descartes which is perhaps historically the most important 
for the development of the doctrine of occasionalism—namely, 
that which arises from the disparate character assigned by him 
to mind and matter and the difficulty of their being brought 
into connection with one another in the processes of knowing and 
willing. That Descartes himself recognised the difficulty is evident 
from the often quoted sentence, “‘ the human mind is not capable 
of conceiving the difference of essence between soul and body 
and at the same time their union, for it would then be neces- 
sary to conceive both as a single being and at the same time 
as two different beings, which is a contradiction.” 3 


1 Principles, Pt. I, LI. a Abid. (Pt. Toa AL: 
3 Cf. the first two letters to Elizabeth in the spring of 1643. (Zuvres, 
Tome IX, pp. 123-35.) 


THE/THEORY OF OCCASIONALISM 53 


The members of the Cartesian School dealt with all the 
points to which I have been referring. Here only a_ brief 
summary can be given of the views of the more representative 
Cartesians of whose influence upon Malebranche there can be 
no manner of doubt. 

I note, then, firstly the views of De la Forge,! whose position 
may be summed up thus: 


I. In the sphere of extension all real efficacy and power 
reside in God. Corporeal things are only secondary or 
occasional causes which determine the activity of the 
first cause, in accordance with certain laws. 

2. The apparent action of the mutually disparate elements 
of extension and thought upon each other is explained 
by the intervention of God, who institutes a union 
between them. It does not imply interaction but 
merely a parallelism due to the will of God. 

3. Voluntary ideas and voluntary movements are caused 
by the soul itself. This somewhat inconsistent excep- 
tion is made in the interests of freedom. 


Even the amount of real power which is thus with hesitation 
left to the finite subject is denied by Cordemoy.? The real 
cause of the movement of corporeal things is God, who acts, 
in accordance with inviolable laws. Our will is merely the 
“occasion ’’ which determines God to turn the movements 
initiated by Him in certain material entities in the direction 
we desire. 

Similar lines of thought were pursued, apparently inde- 
pendently, in Holland, by Clauberg and Geulincx, but whether 
they exercised any influence on the reflection of Malebranche 
is uncertain. Malebranche devotes a considerable portion of 
his writings to the subject, but in the main his arguments are 
the same throughout. The idea of force or power in finite 
things is unintelligible. In the case of God, force or efficacy. 
ts conceivable, for God’s will being absolute, His volitions 
must necessarily be followed by their effects, but there is no 
contradiction in the action of a finite thing not being followed 
by any effects. Real causation involves either partial or entire 
creation out of nothing, and such creation is only possible for 


s 


t Tratté de l’esprit de Vhomme. 
* Le Discernement de Vame et du covps, 1666. 


54 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


God. Regularity of succession does not prove necessity of 
connection, nor does it warrant us.in assuming the existence 
of forces within corporeal things, or in imagining that they can 
of themselves determine the rate and direction of their own 
movements. To attribute forces to corporeal things evinces 
gross anthropomorphism and involves the ascription to them 
of sensations like our own and of an intelligence truly mar- 
vellous. Even in the case of our voluntary movements, we 
must not assume a necessary connection between our volition 
and our movement. ‘‘ Autre chose est effort, autre chose est 
efficace.”’ 

After the manner of Descartes and de la Forge, Malebranche 
uses the conception of continuous creation. Creation and con- 
servation are one and the same act. God is, therefore, the 
cause of a corporeal thing’s existence at all times and at all 
places. Since movement is the existence of a corporeal thing 
successively in different places, it is necessary that the cause 
which gave it being in the place in which it was at first 
should continue to give it being in all the places which it may 
successively occupy during transportation. The cause of local 
movement is, accordingly, the same as that which gave it 
being. 

Similar considerations apply to the problems of body and 
mind. If a corporeal thing is unable to move another corporeal 
thing, still less can it move the mind. Neither has the soul 
any power or efficacy of its own. It can neither produce ideas 
nor initiate movements. There is no real union between the 
soul and the body. It is with God alone that we are truly 
united ; and just as God is responsible for all the changes in the 
physical world, so He is the source of all the faculties of the soul. 
Finite minds and bodies are secondary or occasional causes. 
There is no interaction between them, but there is a correspon- 
dence between their modifications, because God acts in accord- 
ance with certain laws which bring about such correspondence. 
Thus, the laws of the communication of movement explain 
all the changes in the material world and the occasional cause 
which determines the exercise of these laws, i.e. the distribution 
of movement in the shock or impact of corporeal things. In 
like manner, the laws of the conjunction of soul and body account 
for the mutual dependence of the modifications of these two 
substances; and, in this case, our desires are the occasional 


THE THEORY OF OCCASIONALISM 55 


mt 
causes of the movement of our bodies, and our attention is the 
occasional cause of the ideas which we receive from God. 

It will be apparent that Malebranche’s occasionalism is a 
natural and legitimate development of Cartesian principles. 
Some recent writers find, however, in Malebranche’s doctrine 
the origin of the problem of Hume and Kant, and are of 
opinion that Malebranche reaches what they call the modern 
scientific view of a causal nexus, a view which refuses to enter into 
questions of necessary relationship and confines itself to the 
discovery of descriptive or empirical laws. Malebranche and 
Hume, they argue, agree in regard to the following two points :— 


1. That the notion of causality rests upon our experience 
of sequence. 

2. That there is no necessary connection between cause 
and effect. 


But Malebranche escapes, it is maintained, from Hume’s 
scepticism in a manner analogous to that of Kant. He starts 
with the notion of Being in general which is to be conceived, 
after the analogy of a logical system, as the ground of all change. 
Being, or the system of reality, is an objective thought, and, 
being identical with itself, is the source of the constancy and uni- 
formity of nature. In this way, the category of causality has an 
objective significance, and is not merely a category of the under- 
standing. When Malebranche speaks of God as the only force, 
he does so, it is urged, only as a protest, under cover of theo- 
logical expressions, against the occult forces ascribed to finite 
things, and in order to prove that God is the highest ground and 
that the laws of nature are His constant volitions. Some of the 
writers referred to, notably Novaro, dismiss the influence of 
Descartes, de la Forge, Cordemoy and other Cartesians as of 
little importance, and claim for Malebranche the discovery of a 
conception of causality identical with that of modern scientific 
writers. Such an interpretation is not, however, faithful to 
the spirit of Malebranche’s teaching. Even if it were adopted, 
the interpretation would fail to furnish us with a consistent 
theory ; for the question would at once arise whether a ground 
which is admittedly unintelligible can be called a ground. If 
God, or Being, is to be conceived as the ground of all change, 
then all the processes of change ought to be shown to follow 
logically from that ground. But, so far is this from being the 


56 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


case, that Malebranche has difficulty in explaining how change 
is possible at all, consistently with the unity, identity and im- 
mutability of the divine being. God, he says, does not change ; 
God’s decrees are eternal and immutable; nevertheless, the 
effects of these decrees are infinite and produce thousands 
upon thousands of changes in the universe. This explanation, 
difficult enough upon any interpretation of occasionalism, loses 
all meaning if we adopt Novaro’s view. For, then, the occa- 
sional causes themselves become parts of the process whereby 
the objective thought unfolds itself, and in that case we cannot 
ascribe change to them and, at the same time, insist on the 
immutable character of the divine activity. Further, Novaro 
has entirely ignored the immense difference that really subsists 
between Hume and Malebranche in regard to causality, Male- 
branche does not, in truth, deny a necessary connection 
between cause and effect. He simply insists that such neces- 
sary connection is to be found only between one unique cause, 
namely, God, and all effects; and, as against this position, 
Hume was clearly right, when, in.discussing this..very...point, 
he insisted that force is no more intelligible in the divine being 
than in any other being. It is true Malebranche himself 
admits that the divine power is inexplicable; but throughout 
he takes refuge in the thought of God’s omnipotence and insists 
that between the will of God and its effects there must be a 
necessary connection, since God’s volitions are bound to be 
efficacious. It remains to add that Novaro dismisses much 
too lightly Malebranche’s doctrine of creation as a mere con- 
cession to religious opinions. Religion and philosophy were 
not so sharply divided in Malebranche’s thought. He did not 
suppose that religious dogmas were out of harmony with the 
principles of reason. Natural revelation and divine revelation 
were on a level in this respect. The deliverances of both had 
to be accepted as ultimate data. There are, it is true, many 
pantheistic elements in Malebranche’s philosophy, but there 
can be no doubt that he himself resisted and resented such 
tendencies, or that it was his desire to conceive of God as a 
personal self-conscious being, and consequently that the doctrine 
of occasionalism was by him seriously intended to offer an 
explanation of change and movement on strictly theistic lines. 

Does occasionalism offer a rational solution of its own 
problem? It must be admitted that the difficulties which it 


i 


THE THEORY OF OCCASIONALISM 57 


sought to resolve, the difficulties arising out of the unintelli- 
gible character of force or agency, and of the disparate char- 
acter of mind and matter, are not disposed of by having 
recourse to God, in whom the problem recurs anew and to 
whom everything is possible only because God is incompre- 
hensible. If force, or agency, be unintelligible in finite 


things, it is, as Hume urged, equally unintelligible in the 


divine being; and if things of disparate nature cannot act upon 


' oneanother, it is difficult to see how the movement of our bodily 
organs, for example, or the movement of any material body, 
can determine God to reveal ideas to us, or how the presence 


of ideas in our minds can enable God to move our bodily organs. 
The intervention of God is nothing short of a miracle and cannot 
in any sense be said to constitute a rational explanation. To 
some extent, this had been already pointed out by Fontenelle. 
The same difficulties, he argued, come to the front when we are 
told that a corporeal thing is set in motion because God wills 
it so as when we are told that it is set in motion by another 
corporeal thing. In the former case, I can see merely that it is 
so because God wills it, but this a mere necessity of fact, 
while as to the why and the wherefore I am utterly ignorant, 
and, ‘sil fallait entendre ces sortes des comment-la je ne 
trouverai pas que Dieu méme fut une cause véritable d’aucun 
effet.:; 

But, perhaps, the most serious objection which can be 
urged against occasionalism is that it virtually reduces all finite 


things, both minds and corporeal things, to non-entities, or, 


at the most, to modifications of the divine being. It is in and 
through God alone, as we have seen, that we know, love or 


_ feel; but if so, God is everything and man counts for nothing ; 
' man’s existence becomes something to which no intelligible 
- meaning can be assigned. Again, as Fontenelle pointed out, 


all the arguments that Malebranche urged against attributing 
efficacy to finite beings might with equal justice be urged 
against their existence. 

Malebranche argues that though secondary causes have no 


t Malebranche himself sometimes admits this. Cf. Réponse a Régis 
(Paris, 1693), Ch. II., p. 35. ‘‘ On ne doit pas exiger de moi que j’explique 
plus clairement la maniére dont Dieu agit sans cesse dans les esprits. 
J’avoue que je n’en sais pas davantage.”’ 

2 Doutes sur le systéme physique des causes occasionelles (1686), 


58 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


efficacy of their own, they nevertheless serve the purpose of 
determining the activity of God, in virtue of the general 
laws which God has prescribed to Himself. But, since the 
“occasions ”’ themselves are expressions of the divine activity, 
and would not have come to be had it not been for that activity, 
it is clear that they are mere instruments or means employed 
by God to produce certain effects. Thus, an impact is the occa- 
sional cause of the movements of corporeal things, our desires 
and our attention are the occasional causes of our ideas and 
the movement of our bodily organs; but since God is also the 
cause of the impact of corporeal things, of our desires and of our 
attention, the term ‘‘occasion ’’ loses its meaning, and we are 
left. -with..a-~series. of phenomena succeeding one another in 
regular. order—an order in which the divine activity finds 
expression. It is thus apparent that along this line of thought 
Malebranche’s position leads to a thoroughgoing pantheism, 
such as was worked out by Spinoza. Moreover, in the light 
of these considerations, it is clear that Malebranche was not 
justified in throwing the burden of all that could not consistently 
be ascribed to God upon finite things. God is eternal and 
immutable, he argued, when he wished to explain the fact of 
change, and only His effects change. Yet, if the effects them- 
selves are expressions of the divine activity, change in them 
involves change in God. Similarly, in order to justify the 
irregularities we observe in the world, Malebranche has recourse 
to the general character of God’s mode of operation. God, he says, 
acts only by means of general volitions, but these volitions are 
determined to activity by occasional causes. Thus, for example, 
God alone is the cause of movements, yet God only moves 
corporeal things on the occasion of an impulse or impact. But, 
as Arnauld points out, the contention would only be plausible, 
if corporeal things came into contact of their own accord; but 
if the impact or encounter of corporeal things, like all effects 
in nature, is due to the volition of God, the explanation loses 
its meaning; and even if a combination of millions of occasional 
causes were necessary to bring about, say the fall of a fruit, 
God would not on that account cease to be the cause of the 


fall of that fruit.t It is, in short, a flagrant contradiction to | 
insist that God is the sole cause of everything that takes place | 


in the world and, at the same time, to urge that God only acts 
Arnauld, Réflexions philosophiques et théologiques, I. 


| 
: 
i 
{ 
’ 


THE THEORY OF OCCASIONALISM 59 


as a universal cause, whose general volitions are determined 
to activity by the changeable desires of His creatures or by 
the impacts of corporeal things, and to assign to the occasional 
Causes everything that we find to be contradictory of the 
attributes of God. 

The difficulties involved in making God. the sole principle 
of activity were most keenly felt by Malebranche himself when 
dealing with the problem of freedom. Will is the faculty of 
receiving inclinations, and, as we are incapable of modifying 
ourselves, these inclinations must come to us from God. Now, 
God can have Himself alone for the end or motive of His activity, 
and God’s will is nothing but the infinite love which He has for 
His own substance. He also loves created things in so far as 
they participate in His being or imitate His perfections. He 
loves them in accordance with the degree of perfection to which 
they attain, since He loves nothing except in accordance with 
the immutable order of His perfections. Such immutable 
order is not only the inviolable law of the divine will, but also 
the “‘natural and necessary ’”’ law of all intelligent minds, since God 
could not give to created beings a will which would tend whither 
His own will does not tend, or which would love things not in 
accordance with the relations in which they stand to His own 
substance, which He loves infinitely. Hence, by their very 
nature, finite minds must love God, and it is this natural move- 
ment towards the Good which God incessantly impresses upon 
us that, properly speaking, constitutes our will. Of our will 
we are not masters, since we cannot but wish for our own happi- 
ness, seeing that we cannot but love the Good. Indeed, in 
so far as we follow the tendency towards the Good, it is not we 
ourselves who act, or at any rate our action cannot be distin- 
guished from that of God. Nevertheless, Malebranche thinks that 
man is free, for man is master of his will in regard to particular 
goods, The movement towards the Good in general is impressed 
upon us by God “‘invincibly ;”’ but, since no particwar good can 
exhaust all that is contained in the general Good, God does not 
move us necessarily or invincibly towards the love of any 
particular good, and we have, therefore, the power to accept or 
reject it. Being united with God who contains the perfections 
of all things, we are able to think or to have an idea of any- 
thing we want, so long as our mental capacity is not absorbed 
by passions or feelings due to occurrences in our bodily organ- 


60 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


isms; and, accordingly, when any particular good is pre- 
sented to us, we have the power of suspending our judgment, 
or of calling up the ideas of other goods or of the supreme Good, 
and of comparing the particular good before us with the supreme 
good ; and it is this power which constitutes our freedom. 
Malebranche is quite aware of the difficulties of the solu- 
tion. Thus, in the Méditations Métaphysiques he says: “ J’ai 
de la peine a comprendre comment moi qui suis sans action 
et sans mouvement, je puis m’arreter a un bien particulier ”’ ; 
and, in truth, it is impossible to see how the solution can be 
maintained consistently with his general position. He admits 
that it is God who moves us towards the Good in general, repre- 
sents to us the ideas of particular goods, gives us a feeling of 
those particular goods, and moves us towards them; never- 
theless, he insists, we have the power, by means of an act of 
attention, to call up other ideas and so suspend our judgment. 
But surely this act of attention must itself ultimately be due 
to God, since it involves at least an arrest of the movement 
towards the particular good at the moment before us, and such 
an arrest is a veal act which cannot be ascribed to the finite 
mind consistently with the principle that God alone is the 
author of all our modifications. The sole reason which Male- 
branche offers, in support of his contention, is that we have 
an inner feeling of our freedom, just as we have of pleasure 
and pain. If we doubt our freedom, he adds, because we have 
no Clear idea of it, we should also doubt our feelings of pleasure 
and pain, and indeed our existence, since we are only aware of 
our existence by an inner feeling. Yet Malebranche himself 
has warned us against placing any reliance upon our feelings, 
e.g. our feeling of effort, when dealing with the problem of 
causality, and is there any reason why we should trust our inner 
feelings more in this connection ? And further, on Malebranche’s 
own showing, feelings of pleasure and pain and sensations 
often deceive us, since they cause us to attribute sensible 
qualities to external things and to imagine that they are 
initiated by ourselves, whereas in truth they are initiated by 
God. May not a similar argument apply to the feeling we have 
of freedom? Finally, it should be noted that Malebranche 
takes away with one hand what he has given with the other. 
There is, he says, nothing real in our actions. When we give 
positive consent to a particular good, this act of positive con- 


THE THEORY OF OCCASIONALISM 61 


sent is merely a continuation of the movement implanted in our 
minds by God. Only when we consent to a sinful impulse is 
the action our own; but even then there is nothing real in our 
action, it is a mere ‘‘défaut,” “‘ une cessation d’examiner,” 
“un acte immanent qui ne produit rien de physique dans notre 
substance,’ “‘un acte qui ne fait rien.’”’ If, however, this be 
so, it can only be a mere semblance of freedom which is left 
to us, and it becomes clear that all which is real and positive 
in the finite mind is lost and absorbed in the divine activity. 


D. Malebranche’s Speculation in relation to Neo- 
Platonism, Cartesianism, and the Monadology 
of Leibniz. 


The main difficulties in the philosophy of Malebranche, it 
will now be manifest, centre round the questions arising in 
regard to the relations between the finite and the infinite, the 
particular and the universal. The hypostatisation of ideas 
or essences and the ascription to them of a veritable existence 
rendered a knowledge of the particular inexplicable and the 
existence of the particular unintelligible. The world of finite 
things can find no real place in Malebranche’s system, apart 
from recourse to the doctrine of creation, and on his own showing 
creation is an arbitrary act and does not follow necessarily 
from the immutable order of ideas which constitutes the divine 
mind. Moreover, in ascribing existence to the ideas, Male- 
branche makes it impossible to understand how God can be a 
self-conscious being and to avoid the conclusion that God is 
other than a system of Ideas, such as we find in the philosophy 
of Plato. 

Where he is not following St. Augustine and the neo- 
Platonists, Malebranche’s teaching may be regarded as following 
logically from the teaching of Descartes. The essential prin- 
ciples of method, the emphasis on the significance of clearness 
and distinctness, the mathematical or mechanical explanation 
of nature, are common to both philosophers. Malebranche 
_ retains, too, the dualistic theory of mind and matter despite his 
doctrine of intelligible extension. There are, however, as we 
have seen, important points of difference between them, and 
recently the tendency seems to be to emphasise these points 
of difference. Some French writers have even spoken of Male- 


“er. 


62 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


‘ 


branche’s “‘ anti-Cartesianism.”’ Now, there can be no doubt 
that in their deeper attitude to the problems of philosophy, 
Malebranche and Descartes do differ profoundly. Descartes 
aimed at separating metaphysics from religion and theology. 
He may have thought them quite compatible, but nevertheless 
he tried to keep them apart. Malebranche, on the contrary, 
aims to bring about their fusion and union. Religion was for 
him thoroughly rational, metaphysics essentially religious. ‘“ La 
religion c’est la vraie philosophie.”! He did not think they 
could ever conflict with one another. The data of religious 
experience furnished by revelation and the traditions of the 
Church were on a level with all other data of experience and 
had to be included and interpreted in any rational philosophical 
system.2 Moreover, metaphysical speculation was not for him, 
- as it was for Descartes, merely a search for truth. It was a 
means of communion with the Eternal Reason, the Divine 
_ Logos, a means of sharing in that vision which is salvation. 
While in Descartes’ works the idea of God is fundamental, yet 
the existence of God is after all a matter of inference, and in 
a sense God remains a deus ex machina, standing outside the 
systematic unity for which Descartes was in search, for Male- 
branche, on the other hand, our knowledge of God is direct, 
is indeed the basis of all knowledge whatsoever. Throughout 
Malebranche’s writings there is evident his sense of our dependence 
upon God, his intense desire to be in union with God. His whole 
theory of ideas is profoundly influenced by this attitude and 
is conceived in a neo-Platonic fashion utterly alien to Descartes’ 
philosophy, in a fashion indeed which has made some writers 
speak of him as the Christian Plato. At the same time, a 
deeper examination of his system will, I think, lead us to endorse 
the view of Professor Adamson and Professor Dawes Hicks 
that the characteristic features of Malebranche’s doctrines are 
logical and even necessary developments of Cartesian prin- 
ciples. Along various lines of reflection, he tends to consum- 
mate the absorption of the finite in the Infinite, which was the 
logical tendency of Cartesianism. In the first place, the 
doctrine of occasionalism leads irresistibly to the conclusion 
that whatever of reality there is in finite activity is a mani- 
festation of the divine activity. In the second place, the 
doctrine of intelligible extension and the divine immensity 
t Tratté de Morale, Ch. II. 2 Cf, Entretiens, XII. 


_ NEO-PLATONISM, CARTESIANISM, MONADOLOGY 638 


renders unnecessary the assumption of the existence of local 
or material extension, i.e. of finite things. In the third place, 
the restriction of knowable ideas to corporeal things and the 
refusal to admit the existence of an idea of the soul are due, 
as we have seen, to the well-grounded fear that the admission 
of such ideas as that of the soul would lead to the conclusion 
that finite minds are but “‘ modes” of the divine mind. Thus, 
the hypostatisation of the essences would seem to leave both 
finite minds and finite things in a precarious position. The 
historical interest of Malebranche’s system consists, therefore, 
in the thorough manner in which it exhibits the latent tendencies 
of Cartesianism. In many respects he goes beyond Descartes, 
e.g. in the profound distinction between essence and existence, 
in the insistence upon the universality and necessity of truth 
and its independence of the arbitrary will of God. He does not, 
however, succeed any better than Descartes had done in bring- 
ing the parts of his system together into a coherent whole. 
Whilst in Descartes’ system God remains outside the world, 
in Malebranche’s philosophy the world remains outside God, 
though logically his thought would seem to require that God 
should be the essence or substance of the world. 

In many important respects, especially in his theodicy, 
Malebranche anticipated Leibniz. The theory of occasionalism 
as worked out by him does not imply, as Leibniz so frequently 
urged, and as is sometimes maintained now, a series of miracles 
at every moment, for God, according to Malebranche, acts in 
accordance with general volitions, i.e. general laws. The 
adaptation of movement to ideas, for example, is the result of 
the laws of the communication of motion and the laws of the 
conjunction of body and soul, and God, having once laid down 
these laws, the rest follows as a matter of strict necessity. Thus 
interpreted, the theory of occasionalism comes very near to. 
Leibniz’s own doctrine of pre-established harmony. So much is, 
indeed, admitted by Leibniz himself. Thus in a letter to De 
Montmort! Leibniz writes, ‘““I do not find that the opinions 
of Father Malebranche are very far removed from my own. 
The transition from occasional causes to pre-established har- 
mony does not appear to be very difficult.” Malebranche 
also anticipated Leibniz’s views with regard to Providence and 


t Trois lettres 4 M. Remond de Montmort, Opera Philosophica (Erdmann), 
Pp. 704. 


64 MALEBRANCHE’S METAPHYSIC 


with regard to optimism. After the manner of Leibniz he 
believed that God contemplated a series of possible worlds and 
chose from amongst them the best possible. After the 
manner of Leibniz, too, he insisted on the importance of general 
volitions for explaining many apparent evils as due to the 
generality of God’s “‘ ways.’’ But while Malebranche was com- 
pelled, in order to make the finite world worthy of God, to 
have recourse to theology and the mystery of incarnation, 
Leibniz avoided the difficulty of reconciling the divine omnipo- 
tence and wisdom with the apparent imperfection of the 
finite world by means of his notion of the infinite perfectibility 
of the universe. The latter notion does not appear in Male- 
branche’s writings. 

It remains to add that the difficulties with regard to the 
fundamental problems of metaphysics with which Malebranche 
is confronted recur in a new form in Leibniz’s speculation. 
Leibniz’s ‘“‘ possibilities’’ really correspond to Malebranche’s 
“‘essences.”’ To effect the transition from essence to existence, 
Malebranche, as we have seen, has to invoke the aid of the 
divine will. This is precisely what happens in the handling 
of the problem by Leibniz. For Leibniz, too, the world of 
monads is contingent, is “‘ called ’’ into existence by the divine 
will as distinguished from the divine understanding. Even 
the principle used by Leibniz in this connection of the “‘ choice 
of the best’ is foreshadowed by Malebranche. Yet what pre- 
cisely it is that constitutes the mode of transition from the 
world of possible essences to actual entities neither Leibniz 
nor Malebranche is able to say. Moreover, the relation that 
subsists between finite substances and God is left by Leibniz 
far from clear. Though he was anxious to defend the sub- 
stantiality and independence of the individual, he speaks of 
finite monads as “ products or fulgurations of the divinity from 
moment to moment,’ or as “ proceeding from God by a kind 
of emanation,’ and in some passages he adopts quite clearly the 
doctrine of continuous creation. No more than Malebranche 
was he able to combine within the compass of one system both 
the independence of individual finite beings and the omni- 
presence of God. 

Similar difficulties come to the front, if we approach the 
problem from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. 
Leibniz had occasion more than once to criticise the concep- 


NEO-PLATONISM, CARTESIANISM, MONADOLOGY 65 


tions of Malebranche.t Generally it may be said that while 
Malebranche held that we see all things in God, Leibniz main-: 
tained that each monad sees all things in itself. Leibniz will 
not have it that the ideas which we have are in God, but in- 
sists that they merely correspond to the ideas in the mind of 
God. He admits that external objects cannot be immediately 
known by us, but, he argues, we know them through modifi- 
cations in our souls. The disparity between the infinite char- 
acter of some ideas and the finite character of our modifications 
does not present any difficulty to him. That which “expresses ’”’ 
something, for example, a figure that expresses a number, need 
not resemble that which is expressed. He allows, however, 
that the theory that we see all things in God is true in the 
sense that whatever is positive in our ideas is ultimately due to 
the continuous action of God on our minds. Apart from the 
difficulties occasioned by the notion of the activity of the 
supreme monad on other monads, it is clear that, if the view 
be taken seriously, the existence of particulars becomes at once 
problematical, since God’s activity might well be exerted even 
without them, and, in point of fact, Leibniz frequently asserts 
that the development of each monad takes place as though 
only that monad and God existed. Once more, the conception of 
each monad as mirroring from its own point of view the whole 
universe required for its presupposition the doctrine of pre- 
established harmony, and from _that doctrine the doctrine of 
occasionalism, as it emerged from the hands of Malebranche, 
was at no great remove. 

: Entretiens de Philarete et d’Ariste, Gerhardt, Vol. 6; Eine Prifung von 


Locke’s Urtheil tibey Malebranche, Ibid.; Meditationes de Cognitione, veritate 
et Ideis, Ibid., Vol. 4. 





DIALOGUES ON METAPHYSICS 
AND ON RELIGION 


moevine THIN BL 
| ORI, bi 


eT 


Ae 
ae 





FIRST DIALOGUE 


The soul and its distinction from the body—The nature of ideas—The 
world in which our bodies dwell and which we survey is quite 
different from the world which we see. 


THEODORE. Well, my dear Aristes, since you insist, I needs 
must talk to you of my metaphysical visions. But in order 
to do so, I must first take leave of this enchanting scene which 
casts its spell on our senses and by its variety proves too dis- 
tracting toa mindsuchas mine. As Iam extremely apprehensive 
lest I should take for the immediate responses of inner truth 
some of my own prejudices or some of those confused principles 
which owe their origin to the laws of the conjunction of soul 
and body, and as in these surroundings I am unable to 
silence, as you perhaps can, a certain hum which is so disturbing 
to all my ideas, I suggest that we should go elsewhere. Let 
us go and shut ourselves up in your study, where we can the 
more easily pursue our inward meditations and contrive that 
nothing shall prevent us from both consulting our common 
master, universal Reason. Forit is inner truth that must preside 
over our conversation. It is truth that must dictate to me what 
I shall say to you and what you desire to learn with my help. 
In short, it is to truth that belongs the privilege of judging and 
deciding our differences. To-day our only object is to philo- 
sophise; and, although you are perfectly submissive to the 
authority of the Church, it is your desire that I should speak 
to you, in the first place, as if you were unwilling to accept the 
truths of faith as principles of our knowledge. Faith indeed 
must guide our mental procedure, but supreme Reason alone is 
capable of filling our mind with intelligence. 

ARISTES. Let us go, Theodore, wherever you will. I am 
disgusted with all that I see in this material and sensuous world, 
since I have heard you speak of another world full of intelligible 
beauty. Lead me to this happy and enchanted region. Make 


me contemplate all those wonders of which you spoke to me 
69 


&... 


70 FIRST DIALOGUE 


the other day in a manner so magnificent and with a look of 
such content. Come, I am ready to follow you into this country 
which you believe to be so inaccessible to those who listen only 
to their senses. 

THEODORE. You are enjoying yourself, Aristes, and I do 
not object. You are poking fun at me in a manner so delicate 
and sincere, that I feel you want to amuse yourself but not to 
offend me. I forgive you. You are following the hidden 
inspirations of your ever lively imagination. But, do not mind 
my telling you, you speak of that which you do not understand. 
No, I shall not lead you into a strange land; but I shall show 
you perhaps that you are a stranger in your own land. I shall 
show you that this world in which you live is not that which you 
believe it to be, for it is not actually such as you see and 
feel. You judge by the information furnished by the senses of 
all the objects of your environment, and your senses mislead 
you vastly more than you can imagine. They are good wit- 
_ nesses only for matters that concern the body and the main- 
tenance of life. As to all else there is no accuracy nor truth 
in the information they give us. You will see this, Aristes, 
without going out of yourself and without my leading you into 
the fairy region which your imagination pictures for you. 
Imagination is a fool that likes to play the fool. Its flashes 
of wit, its unforeseen turns, will amuse you and me also. Yet it 
is necessary, if you please, that in our discussions reason alone 
should be supreme. It is necessary that it should decide and 
pronounce judgment. Indeed, reason is silent and escapes us 
ever, when imagination comes in the way, and when instead 
of bidding it be silent we listen to its pleasantries and linger over 
the various phantoms which it calls up. Bid it be silent, if you 
wish to hear clearly and distinctly the deliverances of inner truth. 

ARISTES. You are taking quite seriously, Theodore, what 
I have said without much thought. Forgive me for the little 
liberty I have taken. I assure you that... 

THEODORE. You have not vexed me, Aristes. You have, 
on the contrary, delighted me. For, once more, your imagina- 
tion is so lively and delightful, and I feel so sure of you that 
you never make me angry and you always please me, so 
long at least as you poke fun at me only when we are alone; 
and what I have just told you is meant only to make you realise 
that you are terribly antagonistic to truth. That quality which 


ON METAPHYSICS ia 


makes you striking in the eyes of men, which wins for you all hearts, © 
which gains for you the esteem of all, which causes all those 
who know you to be eager for your company, that quality is 
the most irreconcilable enemy of reason. I am putting before 
you a paradox the truth of which I cannot at present prove.t 
But you will soon realise its truth from your own experience, 
and you will perhaps see the reason for it in the course of our 
talks. To reach this point we have still a long way to traverse. 
But, believe me, the stupid mind and the gay mind are alike 
equally barred from truth. There is only this difference between 
them, that usually the stupid respects it and the gay despises 
it. Nevertheless, if you are bent on feeding your imagination, 
you will enter without difficulty into the place where reason 
issues its deliverances ; and when you have listened to reason 
for some time you will have nothing but contempt for that which 
up to the present has charmed you, and if God touches your 
heart you will have nothing but disgust. 

ARISTES. Let us go quickly, Theodore. Your promises inspire 
me with an enthusiasm which I cannot express. Certainly 
I shall do all that you direct me to do. Let us double 
our pace. Thank God we have at last reached the place 
destined for our talks. Let us go in. ... Beseated. What 
is there here that can, hinder us from entering into ourselves and 
_ consulting reason? Do you wish me to shut out all the 
possible rays of light so that darkness shall cover everything 
in the room that is visible and that can affect our senses ? 

THEODORE. No, my friend. Darkness affects our senses 
just as much as light. It removes the lustre of colours. But 
at the present hour it might cause some uneasiness and fear 
in our imaginations. Draw the curtain. This bright light will 
inconvenience us a little and perhaps give too much lustre to 
certain objects. That is all right. Beseated. Reject, Aristes, 
all that has come into your mind by means of the senses. Silence 
your imagination. Let all things in you be in perfect silence. 
Forget also, if you can, that you have a body, and think only 
of what I am going to tell you. In a word, be attentive, and 
do not find fault with my preamble. Your attention is all I 
ask of you. Without this effort or this struggle of the mind 


against the impressions of sense, we can make no conquest in 
the realm of truth. 


t Traité de morale, Ch. XII, 


72 FIRST DIALOGUE 


ARISTES. I believe so, too, Theodore. Speak, but permit me 
to stop you when I cannot follow you. 
THEODORE. That is quite right. Listen. 


I. Nothing or Non-being has no qualities. I think, there- 
fore I am.t But what am I, I that think during the 
time that I am thinking? Am I a body, a mind, a man? 
As yet I know nothing of all this. I know only that 
during the time in which I think I am something that thinks. 
Now let us see. Can a body think? Can a piece of extension 
whether of length, width or depth, reason, desire, feel? No, 
beyond a doubt, for all the modifications of such an extension 
consist only in certain relations of distance; and it is obvious 
that such relations are not perceptions, reasonings, pleasures, 
desires, feelings, in a word, thoughts. This “‘I’’ that thinks, 
then, my own substance, is not a body, since my perceptions, 
which certainly belong to me, are entirely different things 
from these relations of distance. 

ARISTES. It is clear to me that modifications of extension 
can only be relations of distance, and that, therefore, extension 
cannot know, will or feel. But perhaps my body is something 
else besides extension. For, it seems to me, it is my finger that 
feels the pain of a prick, my heart which desires, my brain which 
reasons. The inner feeling I have of all that goes on within me 
teaches me what Iam saying to you. Prove to me that my body is 
nothing but extension, and I will admit that my mind, or that 
in me which thinks, wills and reasons, is not material or corporeal. 


II. THEODORE. What, Aristes! Do you believe that your 
body consists of some substance other than extension? Do 
you not understand that it suffices alone to have extension to 
form out of it a brain, a heart, arms, hands, all the veins, the 
arteries, the nerves, and whatever else the body is composed 
of? If God were to destroy the extension of your body would you 
still have a brain, veins, arteries, etc.? Do you believe, then, 
that a body can be reduced to a mathematical point? That 
God can form all that there is in the universe out of the extension 
ofa grain of sand, I do not doubt. But, assuredly, when there is 
no extension (I say mo extension), there is no corporeal substance. 
Think it over seriously, and in order to become convinced of 

it, pay attention to this. 
t St. Augustine, City of God, Bk. XI, Ch. XXVI. 


ON METAPHYSICS 73 


All that is or has being can either be conceived by itself,- 
orit cannot. There isno middle course, for these two propositions 
are contradictories. Now, all that can be conceived by itself 
and without the thought of anything else, all, I say, that can 
be conceived by itself as existing independently of every other 
thing, and without the idea which we have of it representing 
any other thing, is assuredly a being or a substance, and all that 
cannot be conceived by itself and without the thought of anything 
else is a mode of Being or a modification of Substance. 

For example. We cannot think of roundness without think- 
ing of extension. Roundness, then, is not a being or substance, 
but a mode of being. We can think of extension without 
thinking of any other thing in particular. Therefore, extension 
is not a mode of being. It is itself a being. Since the modi- 
fication of a substance is only the substance itself determined 
in a particular way, it is evident that the idea of a modification 
necessarily involves the idea of the substance of which it is a 
modification. Again, since a substance is that which subsists by 
itself, the idea of a substance does not necessarily involve the idea 
of any other being. We have no other way of distinguishing sub- 
stances or beings, modifications or modes of being, than by the 
different ways in which we think of them. Now, consider. Is 
it not true that you can think of extension without thinking 
of any other thing? Is it not true that you can become aware 
of extension by itself? Extension, therefore, is a substance and 
not a mode of substance. Accordingly, extension and matter are 
one and thesame substance. But I can think of thought, desires, 
pleasures, without thinking of extension, and even if I suppose 
that there is _no-extension. Hence all these are not modes 
of extension, but modes of a substance which thinks, which feels, 
which desires, and which is quite different from extension. 

All the modifications of extension consist in nothing but 
relations of distance. But it is evident that my pleasures, 
my desires, my thoughts, are not relations of distance. All 
relations of distance can be compared, measured, determined, 
in an exact manner by the principles of geometry, but we can- 
not compare or measure our perceptions or our feelings in this 
way. Therefore, my soul.is not material. It is not a modifi- 
cation of my body. It is a substance which thinks-and_which 
has no resemblance to the extended substance of which my 
body is made up. 


74 FIRST DIALOGUE 


ARISTES. That seems to me demonstrated. But what con- 
clusions can you draw from it? 


III. THEODORE. I can deduce an infinite number of truths 
from it. For the distinction of body and soul is the basis of 
the main tenets of philosophy, and among others of the immor- 
tality of the soul.t For, let me say this in passing, if the soul 
is a substance distinguished from the body, it is clear that, even 
if death were to annihilate our body (which it does not do), it 
would not follow from that that our soul was also annihilated. 
But it is not yet time to deal in a thorough manner with this 
important question. It is necessary that I should first prove 
to you many other truths. Try to be attentive to what I am 
going to tell you. | 

ARISTES. Proceed. I shall follow you with all the appli- 
cation of which I am capable. 


IV. THEopoRE. I think of a quantity of things, of a number, 
a circle, a house, of such and such beings, of Being. Therefore, all 
these are at least during the time in which Iam thinking of them. 
Surely, when I think of a circle, of a number, of Being or the 
Infinite, of a certain finite being, I am aware of these realities. 
For if the circle of which I am aware were nothing, in thinking 
of it I should be thinking of nothing. But the circle of which 
I am thinking has properties which no other figure has. Hence 
this circle exists during the time in which I am thinking ofit, since 
nothing or non-entity has no properties, and one non-entity 
cannot be different from any other non-entity. 

ARISTES. What, Theodore! Do you mean to say that what- 
ever you may choose to think of exists? Does your mind give 
being to this cabinet, this bureau, this chair, because you think 
of them ? 

THEODORE. Not so fast. I am saying that all that I think 
of zs or, if you like, exists. The cabinet, the bureau, these chairs 
which I see, all these ave at least during the time in which I see 
them. But you are mixing up what I see with a piece of furni- 
ture that I do not see. There is a greater difference between 
the bureau that I see and that which you believe you see than 
there is between your mind and your body. 

ARISTES. I understand you partly, Theodore, and I am 
sorry for having interrupted you. I am convinced that all 
t See Recherche, Bk. IV, Ch. II. ; 


ON METAPHYSICS 75 


that we see, and all that we think of, has some reality. You 
are not talking of objects, but of the ideas of objects. Yes, 
no doubt, the ideas which we have of objects exist during the 
time in which they are present to the mind. But I thought 
you were speaking of the objects themselves. 


V. THEODORE. Of the objects themselves, why, we have not 
got to them! Iam trying to think the matter out in the proper 
order. Many more principles than you may suppose are necessary 
to prove what no one doubts. For where are the people who 
doubt whether they have bodies, whether they are walking on this 
earth, whether they are living in a material world? But you 
will know soon what few people understand well, namely, that if 
our body moves about in a corporeal world, our mind, on the other 
hand, transports us incessantly into a world of intelligence which 
touches it, and which thereby becomes accessible to the senses. 
Since men attach no value to the ideas which they have of things, 
they give to the created world more reality than it has. They 
do not doubt the existence of objects, and they attribute to 
them many qualities which they have not. Yet they do not 
think of the reality of their ideas. This is so because they listen 
to their senses and do not consult inner truth. For, once again, 
it is much easier to prove the_reality of ideas or,.if I mayuse 
your terms, the reality of this other world filled with the beauties 
of intelligence than to prove the existence of the material world. 
My reasons are as follows. Ideas have an eternal and necessary 
existence, but the corporeal world exists only because it has 
pleased God to create it. So, in order to see the intelligible 
world, it is sufficient to consult reason which contains the ideas, 
or.the eternal.and necessary intelligible essences, and this can 
be accomplished by all minds that are rational or are united 
to. the infinite Reason. But in order to see the material world, 
or rather to judge that this world exists, since that world is 
invisible in itself, it is necessary that God should reveal it to us, 
for we cannot see His arbitrary volitions in the necessary Reason. 
Now God reveals the existence of His creations in two ways, by the 
- authority of the sacred writings and by means of the senses. 

Given the first authority (and we cannot reject it), we can 
give a strict demonstration of the existence of objects.t By 
means of the second we can get sufficient assurance of the 
existence of particular bodies. Yet this second authority is by 


t Dialogue VI. 


76 FIRST DIALOGUE 


no means infallible. For one person believes he sees before him 
his enemy when the latter is very far away from him. Another 
believes that he has four paws, whereas he really has two legs. 
Another again feels pain in an arm which had been amputated 
long ago. Thus the natural revelation which comes about in 
consequence of the general laws of the conjunction of soul and 
body is at present subject to error. I will tell you the reason 
later! But the Revelation can never lead directly to error, for 
God cannot wish to deceive us. I have digressed a little in 
order to give you an idea of some truths which I will prove in 
the sequel, so as to arouse your curiosity and revive your atten- 
tion. Ireturn to the subject. Listen. I think of a number, of a 
circle, of a room, of chairs,in a word, of certain particular beings. 
I think also of Being or the Infinite, or of Indeterminate Being. 
All these ideas have some reality while I think of them. You 
cannot doubt this, since nothing or non-being has no properties, 
and they have. For they enlighten the mind and make them- 
selves known to it. Some of them even strike the mind and 
make themselves felt or sensed, and that in a thousand different 
ways. At least it is certain that the properties of some differ 
greatly from those of others. If, then, our ideas are veritably 
real, and still more, if their reality is necessary, eternal and 
immutable, it is clear that we are both of us carried into another 
world than that in which our bodies dwell. We find ourselves 
in a world all filled with intelligible beauties. 

Let us suppose, Aristes, that God destroyed all the beings which 
He has created, except you and me, or your body and mine. 
(1 speak to you as to a man who already knows and believes 
several things, and I am certain that in this I am not mistaken. 
I should weary you were I to speak with scrupulous care and in 
the manner appropriate to a man who yet knows nothing at 
all.) Let us suppose, too, that God imprinted upon your brain 
the same traces, or rather produced in your mind the same ideas, 
which we take to be present now. This being granted, in which 
world, Aristes, should we be passing the day ? Would it not bean 
intelligible world ? Now, note this, it is in this world that we are and 
that we live, though the body which we animate lives in another 
world and moves about in another world. It is this world which 
we contemplate, admire, feel. Yet the world which we pay 
regard to and which we concern ourselves with when we turn our 
heads in all directions, is nothing but matter which is invisible 

1 Cf. Dialogues IV and VI. 


ON METAPHYSICS 77 


in itself, and which has none of those beauties which we admire, 
and which we feel when we are mindful of it. For, consider this care- 
fully, nothing or non-being has no properties. If, therefore, the 
world were destroyed, it would have no beauty. But, supposing 
that the world were annihilated, and that God nevertheless 
produced in our brains the same traces, or rather in our minds the 
same ideas, which are produced in them on the presence of objects, 
we should still see the same beauty. Hence the beauties that 
we see are not material beauties, but beauties of intelligence 
rendered perceptible in consequence of the conjunction of soul 
and body, for the supposed annihilation of matter does not 
carry with it the annihilation of the beauties which we see. 
ArIsTES. I am afraid, Theodore, that you are supposing 
what is not true. For if God destroyed this room, certainly 
it would no longer be visible, for non-being has no properties. 


VI. THEODORE. You do not follow me, Aristes. Your room 
is in itself absolutely invisible. If God had destroyed it, you say, 
it would no longer be visible, since non-being has no properties. 
That would be true, if the visibility of your room were a property 
which belonged to it. If it were destroyed, it would no longer 
be visible. Granted; sincein a sense that is true. But that which 
I see in having regard to your room, I mean in turning my eyes 
in all directions so as to consider it, will always be visible even 
if your room should be destroyed, nay, even if it had never been 
built. I submit to you, that a Chinaman who had never been 
here could see in his own country all that I see when I pay regard to 
your room, provided we suppose, what is by no means impossible, 
that his brain has been affected in the same manner as mine 
has been when I concern myself with it. Do not persons in a 
violent fever, or when asleep, see chimeras of all kinds which 
never had existence? What they see ts at least while they see 
it. Yet what they believe they see is not. That to which they 
refer what they have seen is nothing real. 

I repeat, Aristes, strictly speaking, your roomis not visible. It 
is not properly your room that I see when I pay regard to it, since 
I could see all that I see now, even if God had destroyed it. 
The dimensions which I see are immutable, eternal, necessary. 
These intelligible dimensions which I see occupy no space. The 
dimensions of your room, on the contrary, are changeable and 
corruptible: they do fill a certain space. But in telling you 


78 FIRST DIALOGUE 


too many truths I am afraid 1 am only so far multiplying your 
difficulties. For you seem to me to find it difficult to distin- 
guish the ideas which are alone visible by themselves from the 
objects which they represent, which are not visible to the mind, 
since they cannot act on it or be represented to it. 

ARISTES. It is true I am a little confused. The reason 
is that I have some difficulty in following you in this land of 
ideas to which you attribute a veritable reality. I can get no 
hold over anything that has no body. And this reality of your 
ideas, which I cannot but believe is a veritable reality, for the 
reasons that you have just given me, appears to me to have but 
little solidity. For, I ask you, what becomes of our ideas when 
we no longer think of them? To me it seems that they retire 
into non-being. And if that is the case, your intelligible world is 
destroyed. If, on closing my eyes, I destroy the intelligible room 
which I see now, then the room has but a poor reality. If it is 
sufficient for me to open my eyes in order to create an intelligible 
world, then surely this world is not of as much value as the one 
in which our bodies dwell. 


VII. THEODORE. That is true, Aristes. If it is you who 
give being to your ideas, if only a wink of the eye is necessary 
to annihilate them, then their reality is but a poor thing. Yet 
if they are eternal, immutable, necessary, in a word divine 
(I mean the intelligible reality out of which they are formed), 
assuredly they are more important than this unavailing matter 
which is in itself invisible. What, Aristes! Can you possibly 
believe, then, that in resolving to think of a circle, for example, 
you are giving being to the substance, so to speak, of which your 
idea is formed, and that as soon as you decide to cease thinking 
of it you are annihilating it? Be careful. If it is you who give 
being to your ideas, you do so by willing to think of them. But, 
now, how can you will to think of a circle, if you have as yet 
no idea of it and out of which to form and complete it? Can you 
will anything without knowing it ? Could you make something 
out of nothing? Certainly, you cannot will to think of a circle if 
you have as yet no idea of it, or at least of extension, of certain 
parts of which you could think without thinking of others. You 
cannot will to see it closely, distinctly, if you have not yet seen 
it confusedly and fromadistance. Your attention brings you near 
to it, causes it to be present to you, even forms it. Granted. Still 


ON METAPHYSICS 79 


it is clear that it does not produce it out of nothing. Your inatten- 
tion takes you away from it, but it does not absolutely annihilate 
it. For if it did, how could you form the desire to produce it, 
and according to what model would you make it anew, so similar 
to itself? Is it not clear that this would be impossible ? 

ARISTES. Not too clear as yet to me, Theodore. You have 
convinced me, but yet you have not quite carried me with you. 
This earth is real, I feel it. If I strike it with my foot, it resists. 
There is something solid here. But that my ideas have a reality 
independently of my thought, that they have being even when 
I do not think them, that is something I cannot persuade myself 
into believing. 


VIII. THEODORE. You cannot do so because you cannot 
retire into yourself in order to consult Reason, and because 
fatigued with the work of attending, you are listening to your 
imagination and your senses, which speak to you without your 
having the trouble to consult them. You have not thought 
sufficiently over the proofs which I have given to show you 
that their testimony is deceptive. 

Some time ago there was a man, otherwise quite sensible, 
who believed that he was always surrounded by water up to 
his waist, and was always in fear lest it should increase 
and drown him. He felt it just as you feel your earth. He 
found it cold, and always walked very slowly because, he said, 
the water prevented him from walking more quickly. When 
he was spoken to and he listened, he was persuaded of the falsity 
of his belief. But he soon fell again into his error. When 
a man believes himself transformed into a cock, a hare, a wolf, 
or an ox like Nebuchadnezzar, he feels instead of his feet the 
feet of a cock, instead of arms he feels the legs of an ox, 
and instead of hair a tuft or horns. How is it that you 
do not see that the resistance which you feel when you 
press the floor with your foot is only a feeling which strikes 
the soul, and that, strictly speaking, we can have all our feelings 
independently of objects? Have you never during sleep felt 
a heavy weight on the breast which prevented you from breath- 
ing, have you never believed you were struck or even wounded 
or that you were striking others, or walking or dancing or 
jumping on solid earth ? 

You believe this floor exists because you feel it ‘offers 


80 FIRST DIALOGUE 


resistance. What then? Has the air less reality than your 
floor because it has less solidity? Has ice more reality than 
water because it is harder? But you are mistaken. Nothing 
can resist a mind. This floor resists your foot. Granted. Yet 
it is something entirely different from your floor or your body 
which resists your mind or which gives it the feeling that you 
have of resistance or solidity. 

Nevertheless, I will grant even that your floor resists you. 
But do you think that your ideas do not resist you? Find, 
then, in a circle two diameters which are not equal or in an 
ellipse three which are. Find the square root of 8 or the cube root 
of 9. Cause that it should be just to do to others what we do 
not wish to be done to ourselves, or to take an example which 
comes nearer to your own case, two feet of intelligible exten- 
sion to equal only one. Surely the nature of intelligible extension 
would not allow this. It offers resistance to your mind. Do 
not, then, doubt its reality. Your floor is impenetrable to your 
foot. That your senses teach you in a confused and misleading 
manner. Intelligible extension is also impenetrable in its own 
way, a fact which it makes you see clearly through its self- 
evidence and by its own light. 

Listen, Aristes. You have an idea of space or extension, 
of space, that is, which has no limits. This idea is necessary, 
eternal, immutable, common to all minds, common to men, 
angels and God Himself. This idea, you must remember, 
is ineffacable from your mind, as is also the idea of Being or 
of the Infinite or indeterminate Being. It is always present 
to the mind. You cannot sever yourself from it or lose it 
entirely from view. And it is from this vast idea that we 
get not only the idea of a circle and of all intelligible figures, 
but also those of the sensible figures which we see in surveying 
the created world. We do all this according to the different 
applications of the intelligible parts of this ideal immaterial 
extension intelligible to our mind, now as a result of our atten- 
tion, in which case we know these figures, now as a result of 
tracings in and affections of our brain, in which case we 
imagine or feel them. I need not explain all this to you at 
present in greater detail. Only remember that it is necessary 
that this idea of an infinite extension should have a good deal 
of reality, since you cannot comprehend it, and since, however 
much you exercise your mind, you cannot exhaust it. Consider 


ON METAPHYSICS 81 


how impossible it is that it should be a modification, seeing that 
the Infinite cannot be actually a modification of something that 
is finite. Say to yourself: My mind cannot comprehend this vast 
idea. It cannot measure it. The idea, then, surpasses the mind 
infinitely, and if it surpasses it, it is clear that it cannot be a 
modification of it. For the modifications of any beings cannot 
extend beyond those beings, since the modifications of beings 
are only those very beings determined in such and such a way. 
My mind cannot measure this idea because it is finite and the idea 
is infinite. For the finite, however big it may be, be it applied 
or repeated as many times as you like, can never equal 
infinity. 

ARISTES. How subtle and quick you are. Gently, if you 
please. I deny that the mind is aware of the Infinite. The mind, 
I grant, is aware of an extension, whose limit we cannot see, 
but it does not see an infinite extension; a finite mind cannot 
see the Infinite. 


IX. THEODORE. No, Aristes. The mind does not see an 
infinite extension in the sense that its thought or perception 
can equal an infinite extension. If that were the case, it 
would comprehend or include it and would be infinite itself. 
For an infinite thought is necessary to measure an infinite idea, 
if it is to be actually united with all that is comprehended in the 
Infinite. But the mind actually sees that its immediate object 
is infinite, it actually sees that intelligible extension is infinite. 
And this is the case, not as you believe, because it cannot see 
its end; for if that were so it might hope to find it, or at least 
it could doubt whether or not it had an end; but rather because 
it sees clearly that it has none. 

Let us suppose that a man fallen from the clouds is walking 
the earth, keeping always in a straight line,—I mean on one of 
those big circles into which the geographers divide it,—and that 
he meets with no obstacles on the way. Could he decide after 
some days’ journey that the earth was infinite because he had 
not found its end? If he were a wise man and cautious in his 
_ judgments he would believe it very large, but he would not think 
it infinite. And if, by dint of walking, he found he had returned to 
the same place as he started from, he would realise that he had 
actually been round it. But when the mind thinks of intelligible 
extension, when it wishes to measure the idea of space, it sees 

6 


82 FIRST DIALOGUE 


clearly that extension is infinite. It cannot doubt the inex- 
haustible character of this idea. | 
Were the mind to take as much of it as is necessary for repre- 
senting to itself the space of a hundred thousand worlds and 
at every moment a hundred thousand more, the idea would never 
cease to supply it with all that was wanted. The mind sees it 
and cannot doubt it. But it is not through this that it realises 
it is infinite. It is rather because it actually sees it to be 
infinite that the mind knows that it cannot exhaust it. 
Geometricians are the most exact of all those who are 
engaged in reasoning. But all agree that there is no fraction 
which, multiplied by itself, would give a product of 8, although 
by increasing the terms of the fraction we can get as close an 
approximation as we wish to this number. All agree that a 
hyperbole and its asymptotes and many other similar lines 
produced to infinity approach one another, without ever 
meeting. Do you think they discover these truths by groping 
in the dark, and that they judge of what they cannot see by 
some little thing which they have discovered? No, Aristes, 
imagination and the senses, or they who follow their testimony, 
proceed in this manner. True philosophers judge precisely of 
nothing but what they see. And yet they are not afraid of 
asserting, without actual experience, that no part of the diagonal 
of a square, be it a million times smaller than the smallest grain 
of sand, can equal exactly, and without leaving a remainder, 
this diagonal of a square and either of its sides. So also it is 
true that the mind can see the infinite in the small as well as 
in the great; not by division or repeated multiplication of its 
finite ideas which could never reach the infinite, but by the infinity 
itself which it discovers in its ideas and which belongs to them. 
These ideas teach it that on the one hand there is no unity, and 
on the other that there are no limits, in intelligible extension. 
ARISTES. I yield, Theodore. Ideas have more reality than 
I thought, and their reality is immutable, necessary, eternal, 
common to all intelligences, and never modifications of their own 
being, which being finite cannot have modes which are infinite. 
The perception which I have of intelligible extension belongs 
to me; it is a modification of my mind. It is I who perceive 
this extension. But the extension which I perceive is not itself 
a modification of my mind. For I am quite sure that it is not 
myself which I see when I think of infinite spaces, of a circle, 


ON METAPHYSICS 83 


a square, a cube, when I survey this room, and when I turn 
my eyes towards the sky. The perception of extension is mine. 
But this extension, and all the figures which I discover therein, 
in a way which I should very much like to know, are not mine. 
The perception which I have of extension cannot take place 
without me. It must, therefore, be a modification of my mind. 
But the extension which I see subsists without me, since you can 
contemplate it, without my having to think of it, you and all 
other men. 


X. THEODORE. You can add without any fear, ‘‘ and God 
Himself.”” For all our clear ideas are in God so far as their 
intelligible reality is concerned. It is in God alone that we 
see them; in the universal Reason alone which illumines all 
intelligences. If our ideas are eternal, immutable, necessary, 
you can easily see that they can have being only in a nature 
which isimmutable. Yes, Aristes. God seesin Himself the intel- 
ligible extension, the archetype of the matter out of which the 
world is formed and in which our bodies dwell, and more than this, 
it is only in Him that we see it. For our minds have their being 
only in the universal Reason, only in that intelligible substance 
which contains in itself all the ideas of all the truths which we 
discover,! whether in consequence of the general laws which 
govern the union of our mind with the universal Reason, or 
in consequence of the general law of the conjunction of:our 
soul with our body, of which conjunction the occasional or 
natural cause consists in the impressions which are made on the 
brain by the action of objects or by the flow of the animal spirits. 

The order of exposition does not allow me at present to explain 
all this in detail. But in order to satisfy in part your desire to 
know how the mind can discover all kinds of figures and come to 
see this sensible world in the intelligible extension, note that you 
can know a circle,éor example, in three ways. You may conceive 
it, you may imagine it, you may feelorseeit. When you conceive 
it, what happens is that intelligible extension applies itself to your 
mind with limits which are indeterminate as far as their length 
is concerned, but which are equally distant from a fixed point, 
and all in the same plane; and then you have a conception of 
a circle in general. When you imagine it, what happens is that 
a determinate part of this extension, the limits of which are 

t Cf. Dialogue XII. 


84 FIRST DIALOGUE 


equally distant from a point, touches your mind lightly. Finally, 
when you feel or see it, what happens is that a determinate 
part of this extension touches your soul in sensuous fashion and 
modifies it by a feeling of some colour. For intelligible extension 
becomes visible, and can represent a particular body, only by 
means of colour, since it is only by the differences in colour that 
we can judge of the differences among the objects that we see. 
All the intelligible parts of this intelligible extension are as ideas 
the same in kind, just as all the parts of local or material exten- 
sion are of the same nature viewed as substances. But the 
sensations of colour being essentially different, we are enabled by 
means of them to distinguish a variety of bodies. If I distinguish 
your hand from your coat and both from the air which surrounds 
them, I doso because the sensations which I have of them, whether 
of colour or light, are very different. That is evident, for if I 
had the same sensation of colour, in reference to all the objects 
in your room, I should not become aware, by means of the sense 
of sight, of any diversity of objects. Thus, you can see that 
intelligible extension applied in different ways to our mind can 
give us the ideas which we have of mathematical figures 
as well as of all the objects which we admire in the universe, 
and finally of all that our imagination presents to us. Just 
as one can with the aid of a chisel make all sorts of figures in 
a slab of marble, so God can present to us all material things 
by means of diverse applications of intelligible extension to our 
minds. How this is done, and why God does it, we shall 
inquire in the sequel. 

This will be sufficient, Aristes, for our first talk. Try to 
get accustomed to metaphysical ideas and to raise yourself 
above your senses. Here you are, unless I am mistaken, trans- 
ported into an intelligible world. Contemplate its beauties. 
Review in your mind all that I have just said. Partake of the 
substance of truth and prepare to enter further into the un- 
known land, which you have only just approached. To-morrow 
I shall attempt to conduct you to the throne of the sovereign 
Majesty to whom belongs from all eternity this glorious and 
unchangeable world wherein our minds dwell. 

ARISTES. I am _ still staggered and dumbfounded. My 

t Cf. Recherche, Bk. III, Pt. II, and the further explanation in the 


Eclaircissement. See also my Réponse au livre des vraies et des fausses 
Idées of M. Arnauld and my First Letter in reply to his defence. 


ON METAPHYSICS 85 - 


body weighs my mind down and I have difficulty in keeping 
a firm hold upon the truths which you have revealed to me, and 
yet you say you will take me still higher. I shall be quite giddy, 
Theodore, and if I feel to-morrow as I do to-day, I shall not 
have enough confidence to follow you. 

THEODORE. Meditate, Aristes, on what I have just told you, 
and to-morrow, I promise you, you will be ready for everything. 
Meditation will strengthen your mind and will give you enthu- 
siasm and endow you with wings wherewith to soar beyond 
merely created things and ascend to the very presence of the 
Creator. Adieu, my friend. Be of good courage. 

ARISTES. Adieu, Theodore, I shall do all that you have just 
directed me to do. 


SECOND DIALOGUE 


THE, EXISTENCE: OF GOD 


We see all things in God, and nothing finite is capable of representing Him— 
Thus it is sufficient to think of Him to know that He exists. 


THEODORE. Well, Aristes, what do you think of that intel- 
ligible world into which I led you yesterday ? Does it still startle 
your imagination ? Does your mind advance firmly and steadily 
in the land of meditative spirits, in this region inaccessible to 
those who listen only to their senses ? 

ARISTES. What a beautiful spectacle is this archetype of 
the universe, Theodore! I have been contemplating it with 
much satisfaction. What an agreeable surprise it is for the 
soul to find itself without suffering death transported into this 
land of truth, where it discovers an abundance of nourishment. 
Iam not yet, it is true, accustomed to this celestial manna, to 
this nourishment which is all spiritual. At certain moments it 
seems quite hollow and slight. But when I partake of it with 
proper attention I find so much savour and solidity therein that I 
can no longer think of feeding with the brutes in a material world. 

THEODORE. Oh, my dear Aristes, what are you telling me ? 
Are you speaking seriously ? 

ARISTES. Quite seriously. I wish no longer to listen to 
my senses. I wish always to enter into the innermost core of 
my being and to live on the abundance which I find there. 
My senses are adapted for leading my body to the ordinary 
pastures. I am willing that it should follow them. But that 
I should follow them, I myself! That I shall never do again. I 
wish to follow Reason alone, and to step by the aid of my 
attention into the land of truth, where I may find delicious 
repasts, repasts which alone are fit nourishment for intelligent 
beings. 

THEODORE. You have, then, surely forgotten that you have 


a body. But you will not be long without thinking of it, or rather 
86 


ON METAPHYSICS 87 


without thinking with reference to it. This body which you 
neglect now will force you soon to obtain food for it and to 
occupy yourself with its wants. For as yet the mind cannot 
free itself so readily from matter. Yet now that your mind is 
firm, tell me, pray, what you have discovered in this land of ideas. 
Do you understand, now, what this Reason is, of which we speak 
in the material and terrestrial world and of which we know so 
little? I promised you yesterday to lead you beyond all 
created things to the very presence of the Creator. Have you 
not flown there by yourself and without thinking of Theodore ? 


I. ArisTEs. Iconfess I did think that, without lacking in the 
respect which I owe to you, I could go myself along the road 
which you had shown me. I have followed it, and I have, it 
seems to me, recognised clearly what you told me yesterday, 
namely, that the universal Reason is eternal and that it has its 
being in God alone. I will indicate the steps of the argument 
in a few words. Judge, then, and tell me if I have gone astray. 

After you left me I remained for some time in hesitation and 
suspense. But, driven by a secret enthusiasm, I seemed to be 
saying to myself, I do not know how: ‘“ Reason belongs to me 
in common with Theodore ; why then can I not consult it and 
follow it?’’ and it has led me, unless I am mistaken, up to Him 
who possesses it as His own, and by the necessity of His being ; 
for it seems to lead there quite naturally. Here, then, is the 
argument in simple and non-figurative language: 

Infinite intelligible extension is not a modification of my 
_mind. It is immutable, eternal, necessary. I cannot doubt its 
reality or immensity. But nothing that is immutable, eternal, 
necessary, and, above all, infinite is.a_created thing, nor can it 
belong to.a created thing. Hence it belongs to the Creator and 
can be only in God. Hence there is.a God, and a Reason, a 
God in whom there is the archetype which I contemplate of the 
created world which I inhabit—a God in whom there is that 
Reason which illumines me by means of the purely intellectual 
ideas which it furnishes in abundance to my mind and to 
the minds of all men. For I am sure that all men are 
united with the same Reason as I am, and since I am certain 
that they see or can see what I see when I enter into myself and 
when I discover therein the truth or necessary relations which 
are contained in the intelligible substance of the universal 


Kg SECOND DIALOGUE 


Reason which dwells in me, or rather in which all intelligences 
dwell. 


II. THEODORE. You have not been led astray, my dear 
Aristes. You have followed reason, and it has led you to Him 
who engendered it out of His own substance and who possesses 
it throughout all eternity. But do not imagine that it has 
disclosed to you the nature of that supreme Being to whom it 
has led you. ® When you contemplate intelligible extension you 
only see as yet the archetype of the material world which we 
inhabit and that of an infinity of other possible worlds. You 
do in truth see the divine Substance, for it alone is visible, it 
alone can illumine the mind. Yet you do not see it in itself or 
asitreallyis. You only see it in its relation to material creations, 
you only see it so far as they participate in it, or in so far as it 
is representative of them. Consequently it is not, strictly speak- 
ing, God Himself that you see, but only the matter which He 
can produce. ® 

You certainly see, by means of the infinite intelligible extension, 
that God is. For He alone can possess all that you see, since 
nothing finite can contain an infinite reality. But you do not 
see what God is. For there is no limit to the Divine perfections, 
and that which you see when you think of immense spaces is 
lacking in an infinity of perfections. I say ‘‘ that which you 
see,’ not the substance which represents to you what you see 
For this substance, which you do not see in itself, has infinite 
perfections. 

Assuredly, the substance which contains this intelligible 
extension is all-powerful. It is infinitely wise. It includes an 
infinity of perfections and realities. It includes, for example, an 
infinity of intelligible numbers. But the intelligible extension has 
nothing in common with all these things. There is no wisdom, 
power or unity in all this extension which you contemplate. 
For you know that all numbers are commensurable among 
themselves, since they have unity for a common measure. If, 
then, the parts of extension divided and subdivided by the 
mind can be reduced to unity, they will always be commensurable 
amongst themselves by this unity, which as you know is certainly 
not the case. Thus the divine Substance in that simplicity to 
which we cannot attain contains an infinity of quite different intel- 
ligible perfections by means of which God illumines us without 


a 
- 
Aes 


[aaa 


c 


ON METAPHYSICS 89 


allowing Himself to be seen as He is, or in His individual and 
absolute reality, but merely in His reality which is general and 
relative to possible created beings. Nevertheless, try to follow 
me. I will try to lead you as near as possible to the Divine. 


‘II. The infinite intelligible extension is only the archetype of 
an infinity of possible worlds similar to our own. By means 
of it I only see certain determinate beings—material things. 
When I think of this extension I do not see the divine Substance, 
except in so far as it is representative of bodies and is participated 
in by them. But now, when I think of Being, and not of deter- 
minate beings, when I think of the Infinite, and not of such and 
such an infinite, it is certain, in the first place, that I do not see 
such a vast reality in the modifications of my mind. For if I 
cannot find in these modifications sufficient reality to enable me to 
represent to myself an infinity in extension, a fortiori I cannot 
find in it sufficient reality for representing to myself what is 
infinite in every way. Thus, it is only God, the Infinite, the 
Unlimited, it is only the Infinite infinitely infinite who can 
comprise the infinitely infinite reality which I see when I think 
of Being, and not of such and such beings or of such and 
such infinities. 


IV. In the second place, it is certain that the idea of Being, 
of reality, of unlimited perfection, or of the infinite in every way, 
is not the divine substance in so far as it is representative of such 
and such a created thing or is participated in by such and such 
a created thing. For every created thing is necessarily a definite 
being. It is a contradiction that God should make or create a 
Being in general or one Infinite in every way which should not 
be God Himself, or should not be equal to His own principle. The 
Son or the Holy Spirit do not merely share in the divine Being. 
They receive Him in His entirety, or, to speak of things 
more within the reach of our minds, it is clear that our idea of 
a circle in general is only the idea of intelligible extension in so 
far as it represents a certain circle or is shared in by a certain 
circle. For the idea of a circle in general, or of the essence of a 
circle, represents infinite circles, is adapted to infinite circles. 
This idea comprises the idea of the infinite. For to think of a 
circle in general is to think of an infinite number of circles as a 
single circle. I do not know whether you follow what I wish 
to make you understand. Here it is in two words. The idea 


90 SECOND DIALOGUE 


of Being without restrictions, of the infinite, of the general, is not 
the idea of created things, or of the essences of created things, but 
the idea which represents the Divine or the essence of the Divine. 
All particular beings participate in Being, but no particular being 
can equal it. Being comprises all things, but all beings created 
or possible, in all their manifold variety, cannot exhaust the 
immense extension of Being. 

ARISTES. It seems to me, I can see your meaning. You 
define God as He defined Himself in speaking to Moses, ‘‘ God is 
that which is.”’! Intelligible extension is the idea or archetype 
of bodies. But the being without restrictions, in a word, Being, 
is the idea of God; it is that which represents Him to our minds 
as we see Him in this life. 


V. THEODORE. Very good. But above all you must note 
that God or the Infinite is not visible by an idea representative 
of Him. The Infinite is its own idea. It has no Archetype. It. 
can be known, but it cannot be constructed. Only created things, 
only determinate beings, can be constructed, or can be visible 
through ideas which represent them even before they are produced. 
We can see a circle, a house, a sun, though they may not actually 
exist. For all that is finite can be seen in the Infinite, which 
comprises all intelligible ideas of the finite. The Infinite, on the 
other hand, can be seen only in itself, for nothing finite can_repre- 
sent the Infinite. If we think of God, it follows that.He exists. 
A finite being, though known, may not exist. We can see its 
essence without its existence, its idea without itself. But we 
cannot see the essence of the Infinite without its existence, or 
the idea of Being without Being. For Being can have no idea 
representative of it. There is no archetype which could comprise 
all its intelligible reality. The Infinite is its own archetype, and 
contains within itself the archetype of all beings. 

Thus, you see that the proposition, ‘there is a God,” is in 
itself the clearest of all existential propositions, and that it is 
even as certain as the proposition, “‘ 1 think, therefore I am.” 
You see, moreover, what is meant by God, for God, Being, and 
the Infinite, are one and the same. 


VI. But, once more, make no mistake about this matter. 
You see only confusedly and as from a distance what God is. 
You do not see Him as He is, because, though you see the Infinite 

t Exod. iii. 14. 


ON METAPHYSICS 91 


or Being without restriction, you only see it in a very imper- 
fect manner. You do not see it as a single being. You see a 
multiplicity of created things in the infinity of uncreated Being, 
but you do not see its unity distinctly. For you cannot see it 
so much in its absolute reality as in the reality which attaches 
to it in its relation to possible created things, the number of 
which it could increase indefinitely without their ever equalling 
the reality which represents them. You see it as the universal 
Reason which illumines all intelligences according to the measure 
of light necessary for their guidance, and for revealing as much 
of His perfections as can be shared in by limited beings. But 
you do not discover the property which is essential to the Infinite, 
that, namely, of being at the same time one and many, composed, 
so to speak, of an infinity of different perfections, and yet so 
simple that in it each perfection comprises all the others 
without any real distinction.! 

God does not communicate His substance to any of His 
creatures ; He only communicates to them His perfections ; not 
as they are in His substance, but in so far as His substance is repre- 
sentative of them, and in accordance with the limitations bound 
up with the nature of created things. Intelligible extension, for 
instance, represents bodies; it is their archetype or their idea. 
But, although this extension occupies no place, bodies are and 
must be locally extended because of the limitations essential to all 
finite created things, and because no finite created thing can have 
this property or character, incomprehensible to the human mind, 
of being at the same time one thing and all things, of being at 
the same time perfectly simple and yet in possession of all sorts 
of perfections. 

Thus, intelligible extension represents infinite spaces, but 
it does not fill any; and although it fills, so to speak, all 
minds and discloses itself to them, it follows in no way that our 
mind is spatial. If our mind could only see infinite spaces through 
local conjunction with locally extended spaces, then, in order to 
see infinite spaces, it would itself have to be infinitely extended. 

The divine Substance is everywhere, without being extended 
locally. It has no limits. It is not contained in the universe. 
But it is not this Substance as expanded everywhere that we see 
when we think of spaces. For were this the case our mind, 


* Cf. Premiéve lettre touchant la Défense de M. Avnauld, Note 18. 
* Ibid., second and eleven following notes. 


92 SECOND DIALOGUE 


being finite, would never be able to think of infinite spaces. Yet 
the intelligible extension, which we see in the divine Substance 
which comprises it, is this Substance only in so far as it is repre- 
sentative of material beings and participated in by them. This 
is all I can tell you. But observe, that this Being without 
restriction, or the Infinite in every way which we think of, is not 
merely the divine Substance in so far as it is representative of 
all possible beings ; for, though we have no detailed ideas of all 
these beings, we are yet assured that they cannot equal or exhaust 
the intelligible reality of the Infinite. In a sense, then, it is the 
divine Substance of God that we see. But in this life we only 
see it in a way so confused and distant, that we see rather that 
it is than what it is; we see rather that it is the source and 
archetype of all being than its own nature or its perfections in 
themselves. 

ARISTES. Is there not a contradiction in what you are saying ? 
If nothing finite can have enough reality to represent the Infinite 
(and this appears evident), does it not necessarily follow that 
we see the divine Substance in itself ? 


VII. THEoDoRE. I do not deny that we see the divine 
Substance in itself. We see it in itself in this sense that we do 
not see it through any finite thing representing it. But we do 
not see it in itself in the sense that we can reach its simplicity or 
discover its perfections. 

Since you agree that nothing finite can represent the Infinite, 
it is clear that if you see the Infinite you can only see it in itself. 
But it is certain that you do see it ; for otherwise when you ask 
me whether there is a God or an Infinite Being, you would be 
asking a ridiculous question, by means of a proposition the terms 
of which you do not understand. It would be just as if you 
were to ask me whether there is a Blictri,? that is to say, a 
particular thing without knowing what thing. 

Assuredly, all men have the idea of God or are thinking of 
the Infinite when they ask whether He exists. But they believe 
they could think of Him though He did not really exist, for they 
do not realise that nothing finite can represent Him. As they can 
think of several things which do not exist because created things 
can be seen though they do not exist, since they are not seen in 
themselves, but in the ideas which represent them, they imagine 

1 Ibid., and Dialogue VIII. 2 A nonsense word. 


ON METAPHYSICS 93 


that it is the same in the case of the Infinite, and that He could 
be thought of though He doesnot exist. This is the reason which 
makes them seek, without recognising Him whom they encounter 
at all moments, and whom they would recognise soon enough 
if they entered into themselves and reflected on their ideas. 

ARISTES. You convince me, Theodore, but there still remains 
some doubt. It seems to me that the idea which I have of Being 
in general or of the Infinite is an idea of my own workmanship. 
It seems to me that the mind can make general ideas out ofv 
several particular ideas. When one has seen several trees, an 
apple-tree, a pear-tree, a plum-tree, etc., one gets the general 
idea of a tree. In the same way, when one has seen several 
beings, one forms the general idea of Being. Hence this general 
idea of Being is only a confused assemblage of all the others. 
Thus I have been taught and thus I have always understood 
the matter. 


VIII. THEODORE. Your mind, Aristes, is a marvellous worker. 
It can extract the Infinite from the finite, the idea of Being without 
restriction from the ideas of particular beings. Perhaps it 
finds in the wealth of its own supply sufficient reality to give to 
finite ideas that which they want in order to be infinite. I do 
not know whether this is what you have been taught, but I 
believe I do know that you have never comprehended it. 

ARISTES. If our ideas were infinite, assuredly they would 
not be products of our work nor modifications of our mind. 
That cannot be disputed. But perhaps they are finite, though 
through them we can think of the Infinite. Or perhaps the 
Infinite which we see is not really infinite. It may be, as I have 
just said, a confused conglomeration of several finite things. 
The general idea of Being is perhaps only a confused mass 
of particular beings. I have some difficulty in ridding my 
mind of this thought. 


IX. THEODORE. Yes, Aristes, our ideas are finite, if by our 
ideas you understand our perceptions or the modifications of 
our minds. But if you understand by the idea of the Infinite 
that which the mind sees when it thinks of it, or that which is 
then the immediate object of the mind, assuredly that is infinite, 
for it is seen as such. Note, I say it is seen as such. The im- 
pression which the Infinite makes on the mind is finite. There 
is even more perception in the mind, and the idea makes a 


94 SECOND DIALOGUE 


greater impression, in a word, there is more thought, when we 
know a small object clearly and distinctly, than when we think 
confusedly of a big object or even of the Infinite. But, though 
the mind is nearly always more affected, penetrated, modified 
by a finite idea than by an infinite one, there is nevertheless more 
reality in the infinite idea than in the finite one, more reality in 
Being without restriction than in any finite being youcould mention. 

You cannot rid your mind of the thought that general ideas 
are no more than a confused collection of certain particular ideas, 
or at least of the thought that you have the power to form them 
out of this collective whole. Let us see how much truth and 
how much falsehood there is in this thought for which you show 
so strong a bias. You think, Aristes, now ofa circle with a diameter 
of one foot, then of one whose diameter is two feet, three feet, 
four feet, etc., and finally you do not determine the length of the 
diameter at all, and you think of a circle in general. The idea 
of this circle in general, you would say, is the confused collection of 
the circles of which you have thought. This conclusion is certainly 
false. For the idea of a circle in general represents infinite circles 
and is applicable to them all, and you have only thought of a 
finite number of circles. What happens must rather be that 
you have discovered the secret of forming the idea of a circle in 
general out of five or six circles that you have seen, and this is true 
in one sense and false in another. It is false if you mean that 
there is enough reality in the idea of five or six circles to form the 
idea of a circle in general. But it is true in the sense that after 
having recognised that the magnitude of the circles does not change 
their properties, you have perhaps ceased to consider them 
one after another as having a determinate magnitude in order 
to consider in general only an indeterminate magnitude. Thus 
you have, so to speak, formed the idea of a circle in general by 
spreading the idea of generality over the confused ideas 
of the circles which you have imagined. Yet I submit to 
you that you can form general ideas at all only because you 
find in the idea of Infinity enough reality to give generality to 
your ideas. You can think of an indeterminate diameter only 
because you see the infinite in extension and because you can 
increase or diminish it ad infinitum. I submit to you that you 
could never think of the abstract forms of genera and species, 
if the idea of the Infinite which is inseparable from your mind 
did not naturally become united with the particular idea of which 


ON METAPHYSICS 95 


you are aware. You could think of a definite circle, but 
not of a circle in general. You could become aware of a certain 
definite equality between radii but not of a general equality 
between indeterminate radii. 

The reason is that no finite and determinate idea can ever 
represent anything infinite orindeterminate. The mind, however, 
without any reflection adds to its finite ideas the idea of gener- 
ality which it finds in the Infinite. For just as the mind spreads 
over the idea of a definite extension, though it be divisible ad 
infimitum, the idea of indivisible unity, so it spreads over certain 
particularideas the general idea of perfect equality. And itis this 
which leads the mind into an infinite number of errors. For 
all the falsity of our ideas has its source in the fact that we confuse 
them one with another and further with our own mental modifica- 
tions. But of this we shall speak on another occasion. 

ARISTES. What you say is all very well, Theodore. But, are 
you not looking upon ideas as entirely distinct from our percep- 
tions ? It seems tome that the idea of a circle in general is only a 
confused perception of several circles of varied size, in other words, 
a collection of diverse, rather indistinct mental modifications, each 
of which is the idea or the perception of a certain circle. 


X. THEODORE. Yes, without doubt,! I think there is a good 
deal of difference between our ideas and our perceptions, between 
ourselves who are aware and that of which we are aware. For 
I know that the finite cannot find within itself that whereby 
to represent the Infinite. I know that I do not possess within 
myself any intelligible reality, and that so far from finding in my 
own substance the idea of all things I cannot even find therein 
the idea of my own being. For I am entirely unintelligible to 
myself, and I can never see what I am except when it pleases 
God to disclose to me the idea or archetype of minds which is 
comprised in the universal Reason. But of this we shall speak 
on another occasion.? 

Assuredly, Aristes, if your ideas were only modifications of 
your mind, the confused collection of thousands upon thousands 
of ideas would only yield a confused complex, incapable of any 
generality. Take twenty colours, mix them together so as to 
excite in you a sensation of a colouringeneral. At the same time 


t Cf. Réponse au lurve des Vraies et des Fausses Idées. 
2 Cf. Recherche, Bk. III, Pt. II, Ch. VII. 


96 SECOND DIALOGUE 


produce within yourself several different feelings or sensations 
so as to form a sensation or feeling in general. You will soon 
see that this is impossible. For in mixing diverse colours you 
turn green, grey, blue into what is after all always some particular 
colour. Dizziness is but a confused agglomeration of sensations 
or modifications of the soul; yet it is after all a particular feeling 
orsensation. This is so because every modification of a particular 
being and of our mind cannot but be particular. It can never 
rise to the generality which ideas possess. It is true you can think 
of pain in general, but your mind could never be modified except 
by a particular pain. And if you can think of pain in general, 
it is because you can add generality to all things. But, now, 
you could not obtain this idea of generality from the resources 
of yourown mind. It has too much reality. It follows, therefore, 
that the Infinite Mind must furnish you with it out of its own 
abundance. 

ARISTES. I have nothing to say in reply. All that you are 
telling me seems to be evident, but I am surprised that these 
general ideas, which have infinitely more reality than particular 
ideas, should affect or touch me less than these latter, and 
should appear to me to have much less solidity. 


XI. THEODORE. Thatisso because they make themselves felt 
in a less degree, or rather because they do not make themselves 
felt at all. Do not judge, Aristes, of the reality of ideas in the 
way children judge of the reality of bodies. Children think that 
the space between the earth and the sky is not real because it does 
not make itself felt. And there are few people who discern that 
there is just as much matter in a cubic foot of air as in a cubic 
foot of lead, because lead is harder, heavier, in a word, more 
capable of affecting the senses than air. Do not follow their 
example. Judge the reality of ideas not by the feelings which you 
have of them, which indicate their action upon you in a confused 
manner, but by the light of intelligence which reveals their 
nature to you. Otherwise you will think that the ideas which 
are sensed and those which affect you, as, for example, the idea 
which you have of the floor which you press with your foot, 
have more reality than the purely intelligible ideas, though at 
bottom there is no difference. 

ARISTES. No difference, Theodore? Do you mean to assert 
that the idea of extension of which I think is not different from 


ON METAPHYSICS 97 


the idea of the extension which I see, which I press with my 
foot, which offers resistance ? 


XII. THEODORE. No, Aristes, there are not two kinds of 
extension, nor two kinds of ideas representative of them. And 
if this extension of which you think were to touch you or to 
modify your soul affectively, intelligible though it be, it would 
appear to you sensible. It would appear to you hard, cold, 
coloured, and perhaps painful, for you would perhaps attribute 
to it all the feelings which you would have. Once more, we 
must not judge of things by the feelings which we have of them. 
We must not think that ice has more reality than water because 
it exhibits a greater resistance. 

If you believed that fire had more force or efficiency than 
earth, your mistake would have some justification. For there 
is some reason for judging of the magnitude of forces by that of 
their effects. But to believe that the idea of extension which 
affects you through some feeling is of another nature, or has more 
reality, than the extension of which you think, without having 
a sensible impression of it, is to take the absolute for the relative, 
or to judge of the nature of things as they are in themselves 
through the relation in which they stand to us. Along ‘that 
line we should ascribe more reality to the point of a thorn 
than to all the rest of the universe, or even to the infinite 
Being. When you get accustomed to distinguishing your feel- 
ings from your ideas, you will recognise that the same idea of 
extension can be known, imagined, felt, according to the various 
ways in which the divine Substance which comprises it applies 
it to your mind. Do not believe then that the Infinite, or Being 
in general, has less reality than the idea of a definite object which 
is affecting you at the moment in a very vivid and sensible fashion. 
Judge of things by the ideas which represent them, and do not 
attribute to them anything that resembles the feelings that affect 
you. Later you will understand more clearly what at present 
I am merely indicating in outline. 

ArIsTEs. All that you have just told me, Theodore, is fear- 
fully abstract, and I have difficulty in keeping a firm hold upon 
it. My mind is strangely overstrained ; a little repose, if you 
please. I must think over all these great and sublime truths 
at my leisure. I will endeavour to make myself familiar with 
them by the difficult effort of pure attention. But at present 

7 


98 SECOND DIALOGUE 


I am not capable of such an effort. I must have rest in order 
to recoup my strength. 

THEODORE. I knew quite well, Aristes, that you could not 
keep your mind clear forlong. Go, lead your body to the pasture 
ground. Refresh your imagination with a variety of reassuring 
and pleasing things. But try nevertheless to retain some taste 
for truth, and as soon as you feel yourself capable of nourish- 
ing yourself with it and of meditating upon it, leave all else for 
its sake. Forget even what you are as much as possible. You 
needs must attend to the wants of the body, but it is a great 
mistake to occupy yourself with its pleasures. 


THIRD DIALOGUE 


The difference between our feelings and our ideas—We must judge of things 
only by the ideas which are representative of them, and not by the 
feelings by which we are affected through their presence or on their 
occasion. 


THEODORE. Hallo, Aristes! How dreamy you look! What 
is it you are thinking of so deeply? 

ArisTES. Who is it? Ah, Theodore, you have taken me by 
surprise. I am returning from that other world into which 
you have led me of late. I go there now all alone and without 
fearing the phantoms which bar the entrance. But, once there, 
I find so many obscure places that I am afraid I shall be led 
astray and get lost. 


I. THEODORE. It is much, Aristes, to be able to leave one’s 
body when one wishes and to raise oneself in spirit into the 
land of intelligence. But it is not sufficient. It is necessary 
to know the map of the country a little, to know which are the 
places which are inaccessible to poor mortals, and which are the 
places where they may go freely, without fearing any illusions. 
It is, it seems to me, through not having paid heed to what I 
have just indicated that most of the travellers in these dangerous 
realms have been misled by certain attractive appearances 
which lead us to those precipices, from which to return is 
morally impossible. Listen to me seriously. I am going to tell 
you to-day what you ought never to forget. 

Never take your own feelings, Aristes, for our ideas, the 
modifications which affect your soul for the ideas which illumine 
all minds. This is the most important of all precepts for the 
avoidance of error. You can never contemplate any idea without 
discovering some truth, but whatever attention you pay to 


the modifications of your own mind, you will never be illumined 
99 


100 THIRD DIALOGUE 


by them. You cannot quite understand what I am saying; a 
little further explanation is necessary. 


II. You know, Aristes, that the Divine Word, as the universal 
Reason, comprises within its substance the primordial ideas of all 
beings, created or possible. You know that all the intelligences 
which are united with this sovereign Reason discover therein 
some of these ideas, according as it pleases God to manifest 
such ideas to them. This happens in consequence of the 
general laws which He has established in order to make us rational 
and in order to form among ourselves, and with Him, a kind 
of society. Some day I will unravel this mystery for you. 
You do not doubt, for example, that intelligible extension, which 
is the primordial idea or the archetype of bodies, is comprised 
in the universal Reason which illumines all minds, and even 
that mind with which this Reason is consubstantial. But 
perhaps you have not reflected sufficiently on the difference 
which subsists between the intelligible ideas which it contains 
and our own feelings, or the modifications of our soul, or you 
believe perhaps that it is not important to notice in what 
exactly this difference consists. 


III. What a difference there is, my dear Aristes, between 
the light of our ideas and the obscurity of our feelings, between 
knowing and sentience, and how necessary it is to become accus- 
tomed to distinguish them without difficulty! He who has not 
reflected sufficiently upon this difference, always believing that 
he knows quite clearly what he feels most vividly, cannot but 
be led astray in the darkness of his own states of mind. For, 
note carefully this important truth. Man cannot be to him- 
self his own light. His substance, far from enlightening him, is 
itself unintelligible to him. He knows nothing except by the 
light of reason, by which I mean the universal Reason which 
enlightens all minds by the intelligible ideas which it reveals to 
them in its ever luminous substance. 


IV. Created reason, our soul, the human mind, the purest 
and sublimest intelligences, can see the light, but they cannot 
produce it or extract it from their own being; they cannot 
engender it from their own substance. They can discover eternal, 


ON METAPHYSICS 101 


immutable, necessary truths in the Divine Word, in the eternal, 
immutable and necessary Wisdom. But in themselves they 
can find nothing but feelings, which, though often very vivid, 
are always obscure and confused, nothing but states of mind 
full of darkness. In a word, they cannot discover truth by 
contemplating themselves. They cannot feed on their own 
substance. They can only find the life of intelligence in the 
universal Reason which animates all minds. 

ARISTES. I am quite convinced, Theodore, by reflection on 
what you have been telling me during the last few days, that it is the 
Divine Word alone which enlightens us by means of the intelligible 
ideas which it contains. For there are not two or more Wisdoms, 
two or more universal Reasons. Truth is immutable, necessary, 
eternal, the same in time and in eternity, the same in us and 
in strangers, the same in heaven and hell. The eternal Word 
speaks the same language to all nations, to the Chinese and Tartars 
as to the French and Spaniards; and if they are not all equally 
enlightened, it is because they are not equally attentive, it is 
because they confuse, in varied degrees, the particular impulses 
of their self-love with the general responses of inner truth. 
Twice two are four for all peoples. All understand the voice 
of truth which bids us not to do to others that which we do not 
wish to be done to ourselves. And those who do not obey this 
voice feel inner reproaches threatening them and punishing 
them for their disobedience, provided they enter into themselves 
and listen to reason. I am now well convinced of these 
principles, but I do not yet fully understand the difference 
between knowing and sentience or feeling which you think so 
necessary for the avoidance of error. Pray explain it to me. 


V. THEODORE. If you had meditated carefully upon the 
principles of which you say you are convinced, you would see 
clearly what you ask me to explain. But without setting out 
upon a road too difficult to follow, pray answer this question; 
Do you think that God feels the pain which we suffer ? 

ARISTES. No, without a doubt, for the feeling of pain brings 
unhappiness with it. 

THEODORE. Very well; but do you believe that He is aware 
of it ? 

ARISTES. Yes, I believe so. For He knows all that befalls 
His creatures God’s knowledge has no limits, and the know- 


102 THIRD DIALOGUE 


ledge of my pain does not make Him either unhappy or 
imperfect. On the contrary... 

THEODORE, Oh, oh, Aristes! God is aware of pain, pleasure, 
heat and the rest, and He does not feel them! He is aware of 
pain because He knows the nature of that modification of the 
soul in which pain consists. He is aware of it, because it is He 
Himself who causes it in us, as I shall show you in the sequel, 
and because He knows well what He does. In a word, He is 
aware of it because His knowledge has no limits. But He does 
not feel it, for that would make Him unhappy. To know pain, 
then, is not to feel it. | 

ARISTES. Thatis true. But is not a feeling of pain what is 
meant by a knowledge of it ? 


VI. THEODORE. No, without a doubt, since God never 
feels it, and yet He knows it perfectly. But in order not to 
waste time on merely verbal distinctions, you must admit, even 
if you think that to feel pain is to know it, that the knowledge 
involved is not a clear knowledge, not a knowledge based on 
light and reason. In other words, it is not a knowledge of its 
nature, so that, strictly speaking, it is not knowledge. To feel 
pain, for example, is to feel oneself unhappy without knowing 
either what one is, or what modification of our being it is, which 
renders us unhappy. But knowledge implies that we have a 
clear idea of the nature of the object and can discover definite 
relations in it by means of reason and evidence. 

I know clearly the parts of extension because I can plainly 
see the relations between them. I see clearly that similar 
triangles have their sides proportional, and that there is no 
triangle whose three angles do not equal two right angles. I 
see these truths or relations clearly in the idea or archetype of 
extension, for this idea is so luminous that it is to a con- 
templation of it we owe our geometricians and physicists ; 
and it is so fruitful of truths that not even all minds in 
conjunction will ever exhaust it. 


VII. This is not the case with my own being. Of it I have 
no idea; of it I do not see the archetype. I cannot discover the 
relations of the modifications which affect my mind. I cannot by 
turning into or towards myself decipher the nature of any of my 
faculties or capacities. The inner feeling which I have of my- 
self teaches me that I am, that I think, will, feel, suffer, etc.; 


ON METAPHYSICS 103 


but it does not enable me to know what I am, or what is the 
nature of my thought, my will, my feelings, my passions, my pain, 
or what are the relations which subsist among these things ; 
because, having no idea of my soul, not seeing its archetype 
in the Divine Word, I can discover, through contemplation of it, 
neither what it is nor the modifications of which it is capable, 
nor the relations which subsist between these modifications— 
relations which I feel vividly, though I do not know them. All 
this is clear enough, Aristes, because, as I have already told you, 
I cannot be a light to myself, because my substance and its modes 
are enveloped in obscurity, and because, for several reasons, 
God has not found it fit to reveal to me the idea or archetype 
representative of the nature of spiritual beings. For, if my 
substance were intelligible through or in itself, if it were luminous, 
if it could enlighten me, as I am not separate from myself, I could 
certainly see, by contemplating myself, that I am capable of 
being affected by certain feelings which I have never experi- 
enced and of which I shall never perhaps have any knowledge. 
I should not need a concert in order to know the sweetness 
of harmony; and, though I had never tasted a certain fruit, I 
could, I do not say feel, but know, clearly, the nature of the 
feeling which it would excite in me. But, as we can only know 
the nature of things in that Reason which contains them in an 
intelligible manner, it follows that though I can feel myself in 
myself, it is only in the divine Reason that I could discover what I 
am and what the modifications are of which I am capable, 
and a fortiori it is in that Reason alone, that I could discover 
the principles of the sciences and all the truths capable of 
elucidating the nature of the mind. 

ARISTES. Let us moveon alittle further, Theodore. I believe 
that there are essential differences between knowing and feeling, 
between ideas which enlighten the mind and feelings which affect 
it, and I agree that though I can feel myself in myself, yet I 
cannot know what I am as in that Reason which contains the 
archetype of my being and the intelligible ideas of all things. 


VIII. THEopoRE. Very well, Aristes. You are now ready 
to make thousands upon thousands of discoveries in the realm 
of truth. Distinguish our ideas from your feelings, but dis- 
tinguish them clearly. Once again, distinguish them clearly, and 
all the enticing phantoms of which I have spoken to you will no 


104 THIRD DIALOGUE 


longer Jead you into error. Lift yourself always above yourself. 
The modifications of your mind are full of obscurity, bear this fact 
in view. Ascend higher and higher to Reason, and you will see 
the light. Silence your senses, your imagination, your passions, 
and you will hear the pure voice of inner truth, the clear and 
evident responses of our common Master. Do not confuse the 
evidence furnished by a comparison of ideas, with the vivacity 
of the feelings which affect or disturb you. The more vivid our 
feelings are, the more obscurity do they cause. The more terrible 
or agreeable our images are, the more they appear to have 
body and reality, the more dangerous are they, and the more 
likely to mislead us. Disperse them or distrust them. In a 
word, avoid all that touches or affects you, and hasten to attach 
yourself to all that enlightens you. We must follow reason 
despite the enticements, the menaces, the insults of the body, 
with which we are united, despite the action of the objects of 
our environment. Do you understand all this quite clearly ? 
Are you convinced by the reasons which I have given you and 
by your own reflections ? 

ARISTES. Your exhortations, Theodore, appear to me rather 
heated for a discussion on metaphysics. It seems to me that 
you are exciting feelings in me, instead of engendering in me 
clear ideas. I use your language. But really I understand none 
too well all that you have told me. Now I see it, and a moment 
after I see it no longer. That is because as yet I can only 
half see it. It seems to me that you are right, but I do not 
understand you thoroughly. | 


IX. THEODORE. Ah, my dear Aristes, your reply is yet 
another proof of what we have just been saying. There is no harm 
in your reflecting upon it. I tell you what I see, and you do not 
see it. This proves that man cannot instruct man. And that is 
so because I am not your master or your teacher. Iam only a 
monitor, emphatic perhaps, but not precise and little understood. 
I talk into your ear. To all appearances I produce noise enough. 
But our only Master does not as yet speak clearly enough to your 
mind; or rather, reason speaks to it incessantly, quite clearly, 
but through lack of attention you do not hear sufficiently well 
what it tells. I was under the impression, however, both on 
account of the things you have just told me, and on account of 
those which I have told you myself, that you understood 


ON METAPHYSICS 105 


sufficiently both my principle and the conclusions that must 
be drawn therefrom. But I see now that it is not enough for 
me to give you general considerations based upon abstract and 
metaphysical ideas. I must in addition furnish some detailed 
proofs of the necessity of these general considerations. 

I have asked you to accustom yourself to recognising with- 
out difficulty the difference between knowing and feeling, 
between our clear ideas and our ever obscure and confused 
feelings. And I submit to you that this alone is sufficient to 
enable us to discover an infinity of truths. I do so on the ground 
that Reason alone can enlighten us, that we cannot be a light 
to ourselves, nor can any intelligence be a light to any other. 
You will see clearly whether this argument is satisfactory when, 
no longer listening to me, you come, in your own room, attentively 
to consult inner truth. But in order to facilitate the understanding 
of my principle and to make you see its necessity, and the con- 
sequences that follow from it, I will ask you to answer me. You 
are expert in music, for I have often seen you playing musical 
instruments in a very efficient and masterly manner. 

ARISTES. I have skill enough to charm away annoyance and 
to banish melancholy. 


X. THEODORE. Very well. Would you explain to me, pray, 
the nature of those sounds which you combine in so exact and 
pleasant a manner? What is an octave, a fifth and a fourth? 
How does it come about that when two strings are in unison, 
you cannot touch one without setting the other in vibration ? 
You have a very fine and delicate ear. Consult it, so that it may 
teach you what I wish to learn from you. 

ARISTES. Surely you are making fun of me. It is reason 
and not the senses which must be consulted. 

THEODORE. That is true. The senses have to be consulted 
only as regards the facts. Their power is very limited, but 
reason reaches all things. Consult it, then, and beware of con- 
fusing its deliverances with the testimony of your senses. Well, 
what does it reply ? 

ARISTES. You are hurrying me too much. Still, it seems to 
me that sound is a quality propagated in the air capable of 
affecting only the sense of hearing; for each sense has its own 
peculiar object. 

THEODORE. Is that what you call consulting reason ? 


106 THIRD DIALOGUE 


ARISTES. What do you wish me to tell you? Wait, here is 
an octave—La-la. Here is a fifth—Doh-soh. Here is a fourth— 
Doh-fa. 

THEODORE. You sing well, but how badly you reason! 
It strikes me you wish to have a little recreation. 

ARISTES. Certainly, Theodore. But, as to your other question, 
I say it is through sympathy that strings of the same sound set 
one another in vibration. Have I not answered well ? 

THEODORE. Let us speak seriously, Aristes. If you wish to 
entertain me, try to instruct me. 

ArIsTEs. I shall do nothing of the kind, with your per- 
mission. Do your part, and leave me to do mine. My part is 
to listen. 

THEODORE. That is very nice and agreeable of you, Aristes! 
Come, then, lend me this monochord and pay attention to what I 
am going to doand what Iam goingtosay. In pulling or in draw- 
ing this string towards me I move it out of its natural position, 
and when I let it go you see without any need of proof that for 
some time it moves hither and thither, and that in this way it 
causes a large number of vibrations and consequently many 
other smaller motions imperceptible to our senses. For a straight 
line being shorter than a curve, no string can make its vibra- 
tions, in other words become alternatingly straight and curved, 
without the parts which compose it lengthening or shortening very 
quickly. But, I ask you, is not a moving body capable of setting 
in motion whatever it meets? This string can therefore disturb 
the air which surrounds it and even the subtle medium which 
penetrates its pores, and this sets in motion something else 
in your ear and in mine. 

ARISTES. That is true. But what I hear isa sound, a sound 
propagated in the air, a quality which is quite different from the 
vibrations of a chord or from the agitations of the air which has 
been disturbed. 

THEODORE. Gently, Aristes. Do not consult your senses, and 
do not judge on the strength of their testimony. It is true that 
sound is something entirely different from disturbed air. But, 
on that very account, you are wrong in saying that the sound 
is propagated in the air. For, note this, when I touch this 
string, I am merely setting it in vibration, and all a vibrating 
string can do is to agitate the air which surrounds it. 

ARISTES. A vibrating string can only agitate the air which 


ON METAPHYSICS 107 


surrounds it! Why, do you not hear that it produces a sound 
in the air? 

THEODORE. Apparently, I hear what you hear. But when I 
wish to be instructed with regard to a certain truth, I do not 
consult my ears, and you consult yours, notwithstanding the good 
resolutions which you have made. Enter, then, into yourself and 
consult the clear ideas which reason contains. Is it your con- 
ception that air and any small bodies are capable, when agitated 
in a given manner, of containing this sound which you hear, 
and that a string can produceit? Once again, do not consult 
your ears, and for greater safety imagine that you are deaf. Con- 
sider attentively the clear idea of extension ;—it is the archetype 
of bodies, it represents their nature and their properties. Is it 
not evident that all the possible properties of extension cannot 
be anything but relations of distance ? Ponder this seriously. 

ARISTES. That is evident. All the properties of extension 
can consist only in its different modes of being. These can 
only be relations of distance. 

THEODORE. It follows that all the possible properties or 
modifications of extension are only figures or stable and per- 
manent spatial relations, and movements, or successive and 
ever changing spatial relations. Hence the sound, which you 
agree is a different thing from the movement, is not spread out 
in the air, and a chord cannot produce it. It cannot be any- 
thing but a sensation or a modification of the soul. 

ARISTES. I see quite clearly that I must either agree with 
you or deny the principle that the idea of extension represents 
the nature of bodies. Perhaps it represents only one of its 
properties. Indeed, who has told us that bodies are nothing 
but extension? Perhaps the essence of matter consists in some 
other thing, and this other thing may be capable of containing 
sounds and even of producing them. Prove to me that the 
contrary is true. 

THEODORE. But do you prove yourself that the other thing 
in which, according to you, the essence of matter is to consist 
will not be capable of thinking, of willing, of reasoning? I 
maintain that the chords of your lute think just as you do, or, 
at least, that they are complaining because you disturb their 
repose. Prove the contrary to me, and I will convince you 
that they do not give rise to any sound. 

ARISTES. It is true that if the nature of bodies consists in 


108 THIRD DIALOGUE 


something other than extension, I cannot prove to you, not 
having any idea of this ‘“‘something other,’ that it does not 
think. But I ask you to prove to me that matter is nothing 
else but extension, and that it is, therefore, incapable of thought. 
This seems to me necessary in order to silence those infidels who 
confuse the soul with the body, and who maintain that the one is 
mortal just like the other; for, according to them, all our 
thoughts are only modes of this unknown thing which we call 
body, and all modes can cease to be. 


XI. THEODORE. I have already answered the question 
which you put to me! But it is so important that, though 
it is not to the point, I am very glad to point out that its 
solution depends, just like all other truths, upon the great 
principle, that the universal Reason comprises the ideas which 
enlighten us ; and, as the works of God were made according to 
these ideas, we cannot do better than contemplate them, in order 
to discover the properties of created entities. Observenow. We 
can think of extension without thinking of any other thing. It 
is, therefore, a being or a substance and not a mode or manner 
of being. For we cannot think of a mode of being without 
thinking of the being which it modifies. For modes of a being 
are nothing but the being itself determined in a certain way. 
We cannot think of figures and movements without thinking 
of extension, since figures and movements are modes of extension. 
This is clear unless I am mistaken. And if it does not seem so 
to you, I submit that you have not any means of distinguishing 
modes of substances from the substances themselves. If this 
does not appear to you evident, let us philosophise no more. 
HOP be es 

ARISTES. Let us philosophise, I beseech you. 

THEODORE. Very well. The idea or archetype of extension 
is eternal, necessary. We see this idea, as I have already proved 
to you, and God sees it also, for there is nothing in Him which 
He does not discover. We see it, I say, clearly and distinctly, 
without thinking of anything else. We can think of it in itself, 
or rather we cannot think of it as a modification of some other 
thing, for it contains no necessary relation to otherideas. But, 
God can create that which He sees and which He causes us to 
see in His light clearly and distinctly. He can create whatever 

t Dialogue I, 2. 


ON METAPHYSICS 109 


is not self-contradictory, for He is all-powerful. Hence He can 
make extension all by itself. This extension will, then, be a 
being or a substance, and the idea which we have of it will 
represent its nature. If we suppose further that God has created 
this extension, it will follow that there will be matter. For 
what kind of being would this extension be? Now, I believe 
that you see that this matter is not capable of thinking, feeling, 
or reasoning. 

ArRIsTES. I admit that, since our ideas are necessary and 
eternal and the same as God consults, it follows, that if He acts 
at all, He will take that which these ideas represent, and that 
we are not mistaken when we attribute to matter only that 
which we see in its archetype. Yet perhaps we do not see this 
archetype in its entirety. Since modes of extension can only 
be spatial relations, it follows that extension is not capable of 
thought. I agree. But the subject or bearer of extension, 
that something which is perhaps contained in the archetype of 
matter and which is to us unknown, that may very well be 
able to think. 


XII. THEODORE. This unknown something will be able 
to do a good many other things; it will be able to do whatso- 
ever you choose to ascribe to it without anyone being able to 
dispute your assertions. It may have thousands upon 
thousands of faculties, virtues, admirable qualities. It may be 
able to act on your soul, enlighten it, renderit happy and unhappy. 
In a word, it will have as many powers, and if you press the point 
as many divinities, as there are different bodies. For, indeed, 
how do I know that this other thing, which you take to be the 
essence of matter, will not have all the properties which it may 
please you to ascribe to it, since I have no knowledge of it 
whatever ? 

Thus you see, perhaps, that in order to know the works of 
God, it is necessary to consult the ideas which He gives us of 
them, those ideas which are clear and in accordance with which 
He has formed them; and that we run a great risk, if we follow 
another course. For if we consult our senses, if we blindly yield 
to their testimony, they will persuade us that there are at least 
certain bodies, the power and intelligence of which are marvellous. 
Our senses tell us that fire diffuses heat and light. They persuade 
us that animals and plants work for the preservation of their 


110 THIRD DIALOGUE 


life and of their species, with a kind of intelligence. Yet we 
see that these faculties are something other than figures and 
movements. We judge, then, on the ground of the confused 
and obscure deliverances of our senses, that there must be in 
bodies something other than extension, since modes of extension 
can only be motions and figures. But let us attentively consult 
reason. Let us linger over the clear idea which we have of 
body. Let us not confuse it with our own being, and we shall 
find perhaps that we attribute to such bodies qualities and 
properties which they do not possess and which belong to us alone. 

It may be, you argue, that we do not see the archetype or 
idea of matter in its entirety. If that were so, we ought only 
to attribute to it what our idea of it represents to us, for we can- 
not ascribe to anything that which we do not know. Assuredly, 
if unbelievers think that they are permitted to reason about 
chimeras of which they have no idea whatever, they must allow 
that we can reason about things by the ideas which we have of 
them. But,in order to remove everything which may be a cause 
of stumbling or of their gaining confidence in their strange errors, 
note once more, that we can think of extension without thinking of 
any other thing; for it is here that the principle lies. Hence, 
God could make extension without making anything else. This 
extension would then exist without the unknown something which 
they attribute to matter. This extension would then be a sub- 
stance and not a modification of substance. And this is what, for 
several reasons, I believe we ought to call body or matter; not 
only because we cannot think of modifications without thinking 
of the entities of which they are the modifications, or because 
there is no other way of distinguishing entities from their modes 
than by ascertaining whether we can think of the former 
without thinking of the latter, but also because by means of 
extension alone and the properties ascribed to it by everybody 
we can explain sufficiently all the natural effects; I mean that 
we observe no effect of matter the natural cause of which cannot 
be found in the idea of extension. 

ARISTES. What you are saying now appears to me con- 
vincing. I understand better than I did that, in order to know 
the works of God, it is necessary to consult attentively the ideas 
which He possesses in His wisdom and to silence our senses and 
above all our imagination. Yet this way of discovering truth 
is so hard and difficult that there is hardly anybody who follows 


ON METAPHYSICS 111 


it. To see that the sun is brilliant with light we need only open 
our eyes. To ascertain whether sound is in the air, it is sufficient 
tomakeanoise. Nothingiseasier. But the mind is overstrained 
when attending to ideas which do not strike the senses. One 
soon gets tired: I know this from experience. Happy you 
who can meditate on metaphysical matters ! 

THEODORE. I am made just like others, my dear Aristes. 
Judge me by yourself, and I shall feel honoured; you cannot 
make a mistake except perhaps in my favour. What do you 
expect ? This difficulty which we all find in uniting ourselves 
with reason is a penalty and a proof of sin, and the rebellion of 
the body is the cause of it. We are condemned to gain our living 
by the sweat of our brow. Now, the mind must work if it is to 
nourish itself upon truth. That is common to all men. But 
believe me, this spiritual food is so delicious, and gives the 
soul such enthusiasm, that once one has tasted of it, though one 
should tire of searching for it, one never tires of desiring it and 
of beginning one’s search again and again, since it is for this 
purpose that we are made. But if I have fatigued you, give 
me the instrument, so that I may relieve your attention, and 
that I may as far as possible render sensible the truths which I 
wish to make you understand. 

ARISTES. What do you wish to do? I understand clearly 
that sound is not propagated in the air, and that a string cannot 
produce it. The reasons which you have just given me are to 
me convincing. For, in short, neither sound nor the power to 
produce it is contained in the idea of matter, since the modifications 
of body consist in nothing but spatial relations. That is suffi- 
cient for me. Nevertheless, here is another proof which occurs 
to me and which is convincing. In a fever which I had some 
time ago I heard the incessant howling of an animal which with- 
out a doubt did not howl, seeing that it was dead. I believe also 
that in sleep it happens to you as well as to me that one hears a 
concert, or at least the sound of a trumpet or drum, though 
everything may be in a deep silence. Being ill, then, I heard 
yells and howlings, for I remember to this day that they caused 
me much pain. But these unpleasant sounds were not in the 
air, although I heard them therein, just as I hear therein the 
sounds which this instrument makes. Thus, in spite of the fact 
that we hear sounds as though they were propagated in 
the air, it does not follow from this fact that they are really 


112 THIRD DIALOGUE 


there. They exist really only in the soul, for they are only 
sensations which affect it, only modifications which belong 
to it. Nay, I go even further. For all that you have just 
told me induces me to believe that there is nothing in the 
objects of our senses resembling the sensations which we have 
of them. These objects stand in a certain relation to their 
ideas, but it seems to me that they stand in no relation to our 
sensations. Bodies are nothing but extension capable of motion 
and of various figures. This becomes clear when we consult 
the ideas which represent them. 

THEODORE. Bodies, you say, have nothing that resembles the 
sensations which we have, and in order to know their properties 
we must consult not our senses, but the clear idea of extension 
which represents their nature. Remember well this important 
truth. 

ARISTES. That truth is evident, and I shall never forget it. 


XIII. THEopoRE. Never! Tell me, then, pray, what is 
an octave and a fifth. Or rather instruct me what I must do 
in order to hear these consonances ? 

ARISTES. That is quite easy. Strike the whole string, put 
your finger there, and then strike either division of the string, 
and you will hear the octave. 

THEODORE. Why should I put my finger there and not 
here ? 

ARISTES. Because here you would get a fifth, and not an 
octave. Just look. All the tones are marked here. Why do 
you laugh ? 

THEODORE. Now I know all about it, Aristes. I can make 
you hear all the tones [ desire. But if we had _ broken 
your instrument, all our science would be shattered into bits. 

ARISTES. Not at all. I could easily make another. It is 
only a string on a board. Anybody can make that. 

THEODORE. Yes, but that is not enough. It is necessary 
to mark out the consonances on the board exactly. How would 
you divide it up in order to mark the points where the finger 
must be placed in order to hear the octave, the fifth and the 
other consonances ? 

ARISTES. I should strike the whole string; and, by sliding 
my finger along it, I should obtain the tone that I wished to 
mark. For I know enough music to tune an instrument. 


ON METAPHYSICS 113 


THEODORE. Your method is hardly exact, for you find what 
you want only by feeling your way. But if you became deaf, 
or rather, if the little muscle which stretches the drum skin in 
your ear and puts it in tune with your instrument were to be 
relaxed, what would become of your science? Could you 
any longer mark out exactly the different tones? May not a 
person become deaf without forgetting music? If you forget, 
your knowledge is not based on clear ideas. Reason has no 
part in it; for reason is immutable and necessary. 

Artistes. Ah, Theodore, I had already forgotten what I have 
just said I would never forget. What am I thinking of? I 
have given you some amusing answers. You had good ground 
for laughing at them. It is only natural that I listen more 
to my senses than to my reason; I am so used to consulting 
my ears that I did not think sufficiently of what you were asking 
me. I will give you another answer with which you will be more 
satisfied. In order to mark the octave on this instrument it is 
necessary to divide into two equal parts the space which corre- 
sponds to the string. For if, having struck the whole string, 
one then touches either half, one gets an octave. If one strikes 
the whole, and then two-thirds, we get the fifth, and lastly, if one 
touches the whole, and then three-fourths, we get the fourth, and 
these latter two consonances will equal an octave. 


XIV. THEODORE. This reply is instructive. I understand it 
distinctly. I see by means of it that the octave, or rather the 
natural cause which produces it, is as 2 to 1, the fifth as 3 to 2, 
the fourth as 4 to 3. These numerical relations are clear. And, 
since you tell me that a string divided and struck in accordance 
with the magnitudes denoted by these numbers yields these 
consonances, if I were to become deaf I should be able to mark 
them on the monochord. Thus you see what it is to reason by 
means of clear ideas ; people are instructed in a thorough manner. 
But why do a fifth and a fourth equal one octave ? 

ARISTES. Because sound is to sound as string to string. 
Thus, since an octave is heard when we touch a string and then 
the half of it, the octave is as 2 to 1, or which is the same thing 
as 4 to 2. Now, the ratio of 4 to 2 is composed of the ratios 
of 4 to 3, which is the fourth, and of 3 to 2, which is the fifth. 
For, as you know, the ratio of one number to another is made 
up of all the ratios which subsist between all the numbers which 

8 


114 THIRD DIALOGUE 


these two numbers contain. The ratio of 3 to 6, for example, 
which is that of 1 to 2,is made up of the ratios of 3 to 4, 4 to 5 
and 5 to 6; and thus you see that the major third and the minor 
third are equivalent to the fifth. For the ratio of 4 to 6, which 
equals the ratio of 2 to 3, is made up of the ratios 4 to 5, which 
is the major third, and 5 to 6, which is the minor third. 

THEODORE. I understand all this clearly, if we grant that 
sound is to sound as chord to chord. But I do not quite under- 
stand the principle. Do you think it is based on clear ideas ? 

ARISTES. Yes, I think so. For the string and its various 
vibrations are the cause of the various sounds. But the whole 
cause is toits half as 2 to 1, and effects are in exact correspondence 
with their causes. Hence the effect of the whole cause is double 
that of half the cause. Hence the sound of the whole chord is 
to the sound of half the string as 2 to 1. 

THEODORE. Do you understand distinctly what you are 
telling me? As for me, I find it rather obscure, and as far as 
possible I submit only to that evidence which accompanies clear 
ideas. 

ARISTES. What fault do you find in my reasoning ? 


XV. THEODORE. There is a good deal of intelligence in it. 
For you are not lacking in that respect. Yet the principle is 
obscure. It does not rest upon clear ideas. Pay attention now. 
You think you know what you only feel, and you take for a 
principle a prejudice, the falsity of which you have already 
. recognised. But in order to make you realise the falsity of your 
proof, allow me to make a little experiment on you. Give me 
your hand. I shall not do you any great harm. Now that I 
rub the hollow of your hand with the end of my sleeve, do you 
not feel anything ? 

ARISTES. I feel a little heat or a kind of tickling, which is 
not disagreeable. 

THEODORE. And now? 

ARISTES. Ah, Theodore, you are hurting me. You are 
rubbing it too hard. I feel a pain which upsets me. 

THEODORE. You are mistaken, Aristes. Let me continue. 
You are feeling a pleasure two or three times greater than that 
which you felt just now. I can prove it to you by your own 
reasoning. Observe. My rubbing your hand is the cause of 
what you feel. But the whole cause is to its half as 2 to 1, and 


7 
Pe 
SSS Se 


pete ae 


ON METAPHYSICS 115 


effects correspond exactly with the action of their causes. 
Hence, the effect of the whole cause or the whole action of the 
cause is double the effect of its half. Hence, in rubbing you 
twice as hard or twice as quickly, the redoubled movement should 
produce twice as much pleasure. Hence, I have not caused you 
any pain, unless you maintain that pain is to pleasure as 
m £0, 1, 

ARISTES. J am punished, indeed, for reasoning with the aid 
of an obscure principle. You have hurt me; and as an excuse 
you prove to me that you have given me a double pleasure. 
That is not very agreeable. 

THEODORE. You have been let off easily. For had we 
been near the fire I might have done worse. 

ARISTES. What would you have done to me? 

THEODORE. Very likely I should have taken a burning coal 
and at first brought it somewhat near to your hand ; and, if you 
_had said that that was pleasant, I should have applied it to your 
hand in order to give you more of it; and, then, I should have 
proved to you by your own reasoning that you had no right to 
complain. 

AristEs. Truly I have had a fortunate escape. Is this the 
way in which you teach people ? 

THEODORE. What else should I do? If I give you meta- 
physical proofs you forget them forthwith. It is necessary, 
therefore, that I should render them sensuous, so that you should 
understand them without difficulty and should always remember 
them. Why have you forgotten so quickly that we must reason 
only with clear ideas, that a string in motion can only agitate 
the air which surrounds it and cannot produce the sound which 
you hear? | 

ARISTES. Because as I strike the string I hear the 
sound. 

THEODORE. I see that quite well. But you do not conceive 
clearly that the vibrations of a string can produce or propagate 
sound. You have agreed to this. For sound is not contained 
in the idea of matter, still less does matter possess the power of 
_acting on the soul and causing it to hear the sound. From the 
fact that the vibrations of a chord or of the air are followed by a 
sound and by a definite sound, you may conclude that things 
being as they are, that is what must be done in order that a 
sound should be heard. Yet do not imagine that there is a 


116 THIRD DIALOGUE 


necessary relation between these things. Apparently, I do not 
hear the same sound as you do, though perhaps I hear the same 
notes or even the same consonances. For if the drum of my 
ear is smaller or thinner than yours, and is thus caused to adjust 
itself more easily in taking up another note than in taking up 
the same—and this is quite probable—assuredly, other things 
remaining the same, I shall hear a louder sound than you hear, 
when this string is touched. Lastly, I see no quantitative re- 
lations between consonances. It is not clear that the difference 
between the sounds of which they are made up is that be- 
tween the greater and the smaller as in the case with the strings 
that produce them. So much seems to me evident. 

ARISTES. That seems to metrue. But if the vibrations of 
a string are not the cause of the sound, how is it that I hear the 
sound when the string is touched ? 

THEODORE. Thisis not the time, Aristes, to solve that problem. 
When we have dealt with the efficacy of causes, it will be solved 
without any difficulty. At present, I merely wish to make you 
notice the difference that subsists between knowing clearly and 
feeling confusedly. I merely wish to convince you of the 
important truth, that in order to know the works of God, we 
must not linger over the sensations which we have of them, but 
over the ideas which represent them. For I cannot repeat this 
too often, we must not consult our senses, or our own mental 
modifications, which are only obscure, but reason, which en- 
lightens us by its divine ideas, that are immutable, necessary 
and eternal. 

ArIsTEs. I agree. I am fully convinced of this. Let us 
pass on to some further point, for I am tired of hearing you 
ceaselessly repeating the same things. 


XVI. THEODORE. We will pass on to whatever you please. 
Yet believe me it is not enough to see a principle, one must see 
it clearly; for between seeing and seeing there are infinite 
differences, and the principle I am insisting upon is so necessary 
and of such great applicability, that it is essential to have it 
always present to the mind, and not to forget it as you do. 
But let us see whether you are quite convinced of it and whether 
you know how to use it. Tell me why it is that two strings being 
in unison the one cannot be touched without setting the other 


in vibration. 


ON METAPHYSICS 117 


ARISTES. This question appears to me to be very difficult. 
For I have read several explanations of it in the works of 
certain authors, which hardly satisfy me. I fear that my answer 
will draw forth from you another little jest, or that you will 
make another experiment, at my cost. 

THEODORE. No, no, Aristes, do not be afraid. But do not 
forget the principle of clear ideas. I ought not to remind you 
of itso often. But I am afraid lest “‘sympathy,”’ or some other 
chimera, should hinder you from following it. 

ARISTES. Just let us see. When I touch this string it dis- 
turbs the air through its vibrations. But the air, thus disturbed, 
can communicate some of its movement to the other strings 
which it meets. 

THEODORE. Very well, but the dissonant strings no less 
than those which produce the same sounds will be disturbed. 

ARISTES. That is what I was thinking of. A little 
“sympathy ”’ would come in very well here, but you will have 
none of it. 

THEODORE. I accept the word quite willingly for what it 
is worth. There exists a sympathy between the strings of the 
same sound. That is certain, since they act on each other, for 
this is what the word means. But whence comes this sympathy ? 
It is there that the difficulty lies. 

ARISTES. It is not due to length or thickness, for there is 
sympathy between unequal strings, and there is no sympathy 
between equal strings if they do not yield the same sound. 
Hence, everything must depend on the sound. But now the 
sound is not a modification of the string, and the string cannot 
produce it. Whence then comes this sympathy ? I am, indeed, 
in a difficulty. 

THEODORE. You are troubled over a little matter. There 
is sympathy between strings of the samesound. That is the fact 
which you wish to explain. Find, then, what it is that causes 
the strings to produce the same sound, and you will have 
all that is necessary in order to discover what you are in 
search of. 

ARISTES. If two strings are equal in length and size, it will 
be the equality of their tension that will cause them to give the 
same sound, and if they are not equal, this will depend on the re- 
ciprocal proportion of the length and thickness with their 
. tension. 


118 THIRD DIALOGUE 


THEODORE. What, then, does a tension more or less great 
produce in these equal strings ? 

ARISTES. It renders them capable of a sound, of a lower or 
higher pitch. 

THEODORE. Yes, but that is not what we want. We are 
not dealing with the differences between sounds; no sound can 
disturb a string, for sound is rather the effect than the cause of 
the movement. Tell me then how the tension causes the sound 
to become of a higher pitch. 

ARISTES. Apparently because it causes the string to have 
more rapid vibrations. 

THEODORE. Good; that is all we want. For the vibration 
and not the sound of my string can cause yours to vibrate. 
Two strings equal in length and thickness and of equal tension 
yield the same sound because they have vibrations which are 
equal in rapidity; and if one rises higher than the other, that is 
a sign that it is more tense, and that it makes each of its vibra- 
tions more rapidly. But no string can disturb another except by 
means of its vibrations For no body can move another except 
by means of its own movement. This being so, tell me now 
why strings of the same sound communicate their vibrations 
to one another, and why dissonant strings do not, at least not 
in any sensible degree. 


XVII. Artistes. I see the reason clearly. Take two strings 
of the same sound. Here is yours, here is mine. When I 
release my string, it pushes the air towards you, and this air 
thus pushed disturbs your string alittle. Mine keeps on making 
a quantity of similar vibrations—in a very short time each of 
these vibrations disturbs the air, and pushes your string just as 
the first movement did. It is that which causes it to vibrate. 
For several small impacts suitably administered can produce 
a sensible vibration. But when these shocks come out of time, 
they impede one another. Thus, when two strings are dissonant, 
or cannot make their vibrations in equal or multiple times because 
they are not equally stretched, or because they are of unequal 
or incommensurable length, they cannot disturb each other. 
For, if the first moves and pushes the air towards you, the second, 
having a contrary movement and returning towards me, its 
movements will be hindered instead of strengthened. It is 
necessary, then, that the vibrations of the strings should take 


- 


ON METAPHYSICS 119 


place in equal or multiple times, so that they mutually communicate 
to one another a movement sufficiently great to be felt, and 
their movement is felt the more, the nearer the consonances 
which they yield approach to unison. That is why in an octave 
they vibrate to a greater extent than in a fifth, and in a fifth 
more than in a fourth, because the two strings begin their 
vibrations most often at the same instant. Are you satisfied 
with this reason ? 

THEODORE. Quite, Aristes; for now you have followed the 
principle of clear ideas. I fully understand that strings of the 
same sound move each other mutually, not by the sympathy 
of their sound, for sound cannot be the cause of movement, but 
by the agreement of their vibrations which disturb or agitate 
the air in which they are stretched. So long as you reason 
about the properties of bodies by the aid of figures and move- 
ments, I shall be satisfied with you. For your mind is so exact 
that it is difficult for you to reason badly in following a clear 
principle. Indeed, if we so often fall into error, it is due rather 
to the falsity or obscurity of our ideas than to the weakness of 
our minds. Geometricians seldom err, physicists nearly always. 
Why is this? Because the latter reason always with the aid of 
confused ideas, and the former with the aid of the clearest ideas 
which we have. 

ArIstEes. I see the necessity of your principle better than 
ever. You have done well to repeat it so often and thus to 
make me sensible of it. I will try to remember it. We must not 
judge of sensible objects by the feelings with which they strike 
us, but by the ideas which represent them. Our feelings are 
confused. They are but modifications of our soul which cannot 
enlighten us. But the ideas which reason discloses to us are 
luminous; they carry with them their own evidence. It is 
sufficient to consider them attentively in order to discover their 
relations, and to receive solid instruction about the truth. Is 
it not this, Theodore, that you wish me to bear in mind ? 

THEODORE. Yes, Aristes, and if you do so, you will travel 
without fear in the realm of intelligences. You will wisely 
avoid the inaccessible or the dangerous places, and you will 
no longer be in fear of those seducing phantoms which insensibly 
lead all the new travellers to these countries into error. But. 
do not imagine that you know well what I have just told you, 
and what you have yourself repeated. You will only know 


120 THIRD DIALOGUE 


it exactly when you have meditated upon it often. For we never 
completely understand what we are told, unless inner truth 
repeats it to us when all created things are silent. Adieu, 


Aristes; I leave you alone with reason. Consult it seriously and 
forget all else. 


FOURTH DIALOGUE 


The general nature and properties of the senses—The wisdom of the laws 
of the conjunction of soul and body—This union changed into a 
relation of dependence by the sin of the first man. 


ARISTES. Where are you coming from, Theodore? I was 
getting impatient at not meeting you. 


I. THEODORE. What, is not reason sufficient for you, and 
cannot you pass the time pleasantly with it, if Theodore is not 
among the party? To the blessed spirits reason suffices for all 
eternity ; and yet you are impatient at not seeing me, though I have 
only left you with it for a few hours. What are you thinking 
of? Do you believe that I shall allow you to have a blind and 
intemperate attachment for me! Love reason, consult it, follow 
it. For I declare to you I renounce the friendship of those who 
neglect it and who refuse to submit to its laws, 

ARISTES. Gently, Theodore. Just listen. 


II. THEODORE. There can be no enduring and sincere friendship 
which does not rest upon reason, upon a good which is immutable, 
upon a good which all can possess without dividing it. For 
the friendship which rests upon goods which are divided and 
which disappear through use always has sad results and lasts 
only a short time. A dangerous kind of friendship! 

ArIsTES. Agreed. All that is true, nothing is more certain. 
Ah, Theodore ! 

THEODORE. What do you wish to say? 


III. Artistes. What a difference there is between seeing 
and seeing, between knowing what people tell us, when 
they tell us, and knowing what reason tells us when it 
speaks to us! What a difference there is between knowing 
and feeling, between the ideas which enlighten us, and the 
confused feelings which agitate and trouble us! How fruitful 
this principle is! and what light it throws! How many errors 
and prejudices it disposes of! I have meditated, Theodore, 


upon this principle, I have followed out its consequences and 
121 


122 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


have been impatient to see you in order to thank you for having 
taught it to me. Allow me to tell you what the faithful ones 
of Samaria said to the Samaritan woman, after they had, like 
her, heard our common Master. Now we believe, not because 
of thy saying, they said to the woman, for we have heard Him 
ourselves and know.? Yes, now I am convinced not by the 
force of your argument but by the evident responses of inner 
truth. I understand what you have told me. But have I not 
understood several other things of which you have not spoken 
tome? I have understood them clearly, and what is most deeply 
impressed on my memory is the fact that I have lived all my 
life in illusion, ever misled by the testimony of my senses, ever 
corrupted by their attractions. How despicable are the goods of 
the senses! How impotent corporeal things appeartome! No, 
this sun, however brilliant it may appear to mine eyes, neither 
possesses nor diffuses the light which enlightens me. All these 
colours which gladden me by their variety and vivacity, all these 
beautiful things which charm me when I turn my eyes to all that 
is around me, belong to myself. All this comes not from corporeal 
things, it is not in corporeal things. For nothing of all this is con- 
tained in the idea of matter. And I feel sure that one must not 
judge of the works of God by the sensations which one has of 
them, but by the immutable, eternal and necessary ideas which 
represent them, by the archetype in accordance with which they 
have all been formed. | 

THEODORE. What pleasure it gives me to hear you! I 
see quite well that you have consulted reason during the time 
when all creatures were sunk in silence, for you are still fully 
enlightened, fully animated, fully penetrated, by its light. Ah, 
what good friends we shall always be, if reason is always our 
common master, and the bond of our union! We shall both - 
enjoy the same pleasures, we shall both possess the same riches. 
For truth gives itself wholly to all and in all entirety to each of 
us. All minds receive nourishment therefrom, without diminish- 
ing its abundance. Once again, I rejoice to see you so impressed 
by the truths which you are recounting to me. 


IV. ARIsTES. I am also fully conscious of my obligation to 
you. That was the cause of my impatience. Yes, you have 
revealed to me the tree of the earthly paradise which gives to 

t John iv.742. 


ON METAPHYSICS 123 


our spirits life and immortality. You have shown me the celestial 
manna with which I must support myself in the desert of the 
present life. Without my being aware of it, you have conducted 
me to our inner Master, who alone enlightens all intelligent minds. 
A quarter of an hour’s serious attention to the clear and 
luminous ideas thus presented to my mind has taught me more 
truths, has freed me from more prejudices than all that I had 
read in the books of the philosophers, than all that I had heard 
my teachers and even you say. For, however exact your expres- 
sions are when you speak to me and I consult reason, I get at 
the same time a confused whir of two different answers, the one 
sensuous, the other intelligible. And the least of the ill effects 
resulting therefrom is that the answer which strikes my ear takes 
up a good deal of the capacity of my mind and diminishes thereby 
its vivacity and power of penetration. For it requires time to 
give your words utterance. But all the answers of reason are 
eternal and immutable. They have always been uttered, or 
rather they are always being uttered without any temporal 
succession, and though it takes us some moments to hear them, 
reason needs none to produce them, for in truth they are never 
made. They are eternal, immutable, necessary. Allow me to 
tell you a part of what I believe I have learnt from our common 
Master, to whom you were charitable enough to introduce me. 


V. As soon as you left me, Theodore, I fell into deep medi- 
tation in order to consult reason, and I recognised far better 
than when you were speaking to me and I was yielding to your 
arguments that the ideas of created beings are eternal, that 
God has made all bodies in accordance with the idea of extension, 
that this idea must, therefore, represent their nature, and that I 
must consequently consider it carefully in order to discover their 
properties. I understood clearly that to consult my senses, and 
to seek truth in my own states of mind, was to prefer darkness 
to light and to abandon reason. At first my senses resisted my 
conclusions, as though they were jealous of the ideas, as though 
they saw themselves deprived by them of a privilege which 
they had long possessed in my mind. But I found so much 
falsity and so many contradictions in the resistance which they 
offered, that I condemned them as deceivers and false witnesses. 
Indeed, I saw nothing convincing in their testimony; and, on 
the other hand, I noticed a wonderful clearness in the ideas which 


124 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


they were attempting to obscure. Thus, though they continued 
speaking to me with confidence, assurance and the utmost 
importunity, I drove them to silence, and I re-summoned the 
ideas which were abandoning me because they could not endure 
the hum and tumult of the mutinous senses. 

I must admit, Theodore, that the sensuous proofs which 
you have given me against the authority of the senses proved 
wonderfully useful. Forit was by means of them that I suc- 
ceeded in quelling the noisy senses. I convicted them of falsity 
on their own evidence. They contradicted themselves at every 
turn. For, apart from the fact that they said nothing which 
was not incomprehensible and altogether incredible, they gave 
me the same reports of entirely different things and quite con- 
tradictory reports of the same things, according to the interest 
which they happened to take therein. I, therefore, silenced 
them, being quite determined no longer to judge of the works 
of God on the basis of their testimony, but rather on that of 
the ideas which represent those works and in accordance with 
which they were formed. 

It was in following this principle that I realised that 
light is neither in the sun nor in the air where we see it; that 
colours are not on the surface of bodies; that the sun could 
perhaps set in motion the fine particles of the air, and these latter 
could communicate the same impression of movement to the 
optic nerve, and thence to that part of the brain where the soul 
resides, and that these small bodies in movement when encounter- 
ing solid objects might be reflected differently according to the 
diversity in the surfaces which were causing them to rebound. 
So much for their boasted light and variety of colours. 


VI. I have understood likewise that the heat which I feel 
is not in the fire, nor the cold in the ice, nor even pain in my 
own body, in which I have often felt it so cruelly acute. Neither 
is sweetness in the sugar, nor bitterness in the aloes, nor acidity in 
sour grapes, nor sourness in vinegar, nor that sweetness and strength 
in wine which deceives and stupefies so many drunkards. I see 
all this, by the same reason which enabled me to see that sound 
must be regarded as not in the air and that there is an infinite 
difference between the vibrations of strings and the sounds which 
they yield, between the proportions of their vibrations and the 
variety of the consonances. 


ON METAPHYSICS 125 


It would take me too long, Theodore, if I were to give you 
in detail all the proofs which have convinced me! that bodies 
have no other qualities than those which result from their figures, 
not any other activity than their various movements. But I 
cannot conceal from you a difficulty which, despite all my efforts, 
I was unable to surmount. I follow, for instance, without mis- 
giving, the action of the sun through all the space which separates 
it from me. For, granted that there is no empty space, I can 
understand that the sun can make no impression in the places 
it occupies without the impression being transmitted to the 
place which I occupy or to my eyes, and by my eyes to my brain. 
But, in following the clear idea of movement, I could not under- 
stand whence there came to me the sensation of light. I see 
quite well that the movement of the optic nerve is alone sufficient 
to produce the sensation in me. For, pressing the corner of 
my eye with my finger on a spot behind which I know the optic 
nerve is located, I saw a bright light in a place otherwise dark 
on the side opposite to that on which my eye was pressed. Yet 
this change from movement to light seemed to me then and 
seems to me still altogether incomprehensible. What a strange 
metamorphosis, from a pressure on the eye to a brilliant 
light! And this is all the more astounding because I do 
not see this radiance of light in my soul of which it is the 
modification, nor in my brain, where the disturbance ends, nor 
in the eye where the pressure takes place, nor on the side on 
which I press my eye, but in the air—in the air which surely is 
incapable of such a modification, and on the side opposite to 
the eye which I press. What a marvellous thing! 


VII. At first I thought that my soul, on being warned of 
the disturbance that had taken place in my body, was the cause 
of the sensations which it had of the things around it. But a 
little reflection undeceived me. For it is not true, it seems to 
me, that the soul knows anything of the disturbance caused by 
the sun in the fibres of the brain. I saw light before I knew of 
this disturbance. For children who do not even know that 
they have a brain are struck by the brilliance of light just as 
much as philosophers are. Again, what relation is there between the 
vibrations of a corporeal thing and the different sensations which 
follow such vibrations ? How can I see light in bodies if it is 
a modification of my soul, how see it in bodies around me, if the 

, 1 Cf. Recherche, Bk. I, Ch. VI, sew 


126 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


disturbance takes place in my body alone? I press the corner 
of my eye on the right side, why do I see the light on the left 
side, notwithstanding the fact that J am well aware that it is not 
on that side that I am pressing ? 

From all this, and from a number of other things which it 
would take me too long to tell you, I concluded that the sensa- 
tions were in myself, that I was in no wise their cause, and that if 
corporeal things were capable of acting on me and of making them- 
selves felt in the way I feel them, it would be necessary that they 
should be of a nature more excellent than my body, endowed with 
a terrible power, and some of them even with a wisdom truly 
marvellous, always uniform in their behaviour, always effective 
in their action, always incomprehensible in the astounding results 
of their power. All this appeared to me tremendous and terrible 
to think of, though my senses encouraged the madness and quite 
accommodated themselves to it. But, Theodore, will you kindly 
clear this matter up for me? 

THEODORE. There is no time to resolve your difficulties 
unless you desire that we should leave the general truths of 
metaphysics and enter upon an explanation of the principles of 
physics and of the laws of the conjunction of soul and body. 

ARISTES. Say a few words, please, on this point. It will 
give me much pleasure to meditate upon the matter. My mind 
is quite prepared for it. 


VIII. THEODORE. Listen, then; but remember to meditate 
upon what I have already told you. When we seek to find the 
reason of certain effects, and in following the chain of causes and 
effects arrive at last at a general cause or at a cause that we 
can quite well see has no relation to the effect which it produces 
or rather appears to produce, then instead of being satisfied with 
chimeras, we ought to have recourse to the author of the laws 
ofnature. For example, if you were to ask me what is the cause | 
of the pain which one feels when one is pricked, I should be 
wrong to tell you forthwith that it is one of the laws of the author 
of nature that a prick should be followed by pain. I ought 
to tell you that the prick cannot separate the fibres of my flesh 
without disturbing the nerves which propagate stimulation to 
the brain, and without disturbing the brain itself. But if you 
wish to know how it is that when a certain part of my brain is 
disturbed in a given way, I feel the pain of a prick, this question 


ON METAPHYSICS 127 


concerns a general effect ; and, as one cannot by tracing the matter 
further, find a natural or particular cause, one must have recourse 
to a general cause. For this amounts to a question as to who 
is the author of the general laws of the conjunction of soul and 
body. Now, since admittedly, there can be no relation or 
necessary connection between a disturbance in the brain and 
certain sensations, it is evident that we must have recourse to a 
power which is not to be met with in either of these entities. It 
is not sufficient to say that as the prick wounds the body, the 
soul must be warned of the fact by pain, so that it may go to 
its assistance. For this would be to substitute a final for an 
efficient cause, and the difficulty would remain; for we should 
still have to ascertain the cause which brings it about, that, on 
the occasion of the body being wounded, the soul suffers in 
consequence, and experiences a particular kind of pain for a 
particular kind of wound. 


IX. Further, to say, with certain philosophers, that the soul 
is the cause of the pain, because the pain is but the sadness 
which the soul feels when there takes place in the body which it 
loves some disturbance of which it is warned by the difficulty 
which it has in the exercise of its functions, is to neglect 
the inner feeling which we experience of what takes place in 
us. For every one feels unmistakably, when he is being bled, for 
example, or when he burns himself, that he is not the cause of 
the pain. He feels it against his own will, and he cannot doubt 
that it comes to him from an external cause. Again, the soul 
does not feel pain and a particular kind of pain because 
it has learnt that a disturbance is taking place in the brain, 
and a particular kind of disturbance. Nothing is more certain 
than this. Finally, pain and sadness are entirely different. Pain 
precedes the awareness of the evil, sadness followsit. Pain is not 
agreeable, but sadness sometimes pleases us so much that those 
who wish to banish it from our mind without freeing us at the 
same time from the evil which causes it grieve and irritate us 
just as if they disturbed our joy, because sadness is, in fact, 
a state of the soul which is most suitable for us when we suffer 
some evil or are deprived of some good, and the feeling which 
accompanies this state of mind is the most suitable we can have 
under the circumstances. Pain, then, is entirely different from 
sadness. Moreover, I think that the soul is not the cause of its 


128 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


sadness ; and that the thought which we have of the loss of some 
good only produces this feeling in us in consequence of the natural 
and necessary movement which God unceasingly impresses upon 
us for our welfare. But let us return to the difficulties which you 
have regarding the action and the qualities of light. 


X. Firstly, there is no metamorphosis. The disturbance 
that takes place in the brain cannot change into light or 
into colours. For as modifications of bodies are nothing but 
these bodies themselves determined in a particular manner, 
they cannot be transformed into modifications of mind. That 
is evident. 

Secondly, you press the corner of your eye and you have 
a certain sensation. That is so because He who alone can act 
upon minds has established certain laws owing to which body 
and soul operate and suffer in reciprocal determination.! 

Thirdly, when you press your eye you have a sensation 
of light, though there is present no luminous body, because it is 
by a pressure similar to that which your finger exerts upon your 
eye, and from there on your brain, that bodies which we call 
luminous operate upon those around them, and through the latter 
upon our eyes and our brains, All this takes place in consequence 
of natural laws. For it is one of the laws of the conjunction 
of soul and body in accordance with which God acts inces- 
santly upon those two substances, that a particular pressure or 
a particular disturbance should be followed by a particular 
sensation. 

Fourthly, you see the light which is a modification of your 
mind and which, therefore, can exist init alone; for there is a 
contradiction in the thought of a modification of a being existing 
where that beingis not. You see it, I say, in the vast spaces which 
your mind does not fill, for the mind does not occupy space. 
Those spaces which you see are only intelligible spaces which 
do not occupy any place. For the spaces which you see are quite 
different from the material spaces which you survey. One 
must nor confuse the ideas of things with the things themselves. 
Remember, that we do not see bodies in themselves, and 
that it is only through their ideas that they are visible. 
Often we can see what does not actually exist, a proof 


t Cf. Dialogue XII. 
2 Cf. Premiere Letive touchani la Défense de M. Arnauld. 


ON METAPHYSICS 129 


positive that those things which we see are intelligible and quite 
different from those which we look at. 

Fifthly and lastly, you see the light not on the side on which 
you press your eye but on the opposite side, because, the nerve being 
constructed and adapted to receive impressions from luminous 
bodies through the pupil of the eye and not otherwise, the pressure 
of your finger on the left produces the same effect on your eye 
as aluminous body on the right whose rays were to pass the pupil 
and the transparent part of the eye would produce. For in 
pressing the eye from without you are pressing the optic nerve 
from within against what is called the vitreous humour, which 
in turn offers some resistance. Thus, God makes you experience the 
light on the side on which you see it because He always follows 
the laws which He has established in order to keep His procedure 
perfectly uniform; God never performs miracles; He never 
acts according to particular volitions against His own laws, for 
the order does not demand or permit it. His action always 
bears the character of His attributes. It continues always the 
same, if what He owes to his immutability is of no smaller impor- 
tance than what He owes to any other of His perfections—as 
I shall prove to you in the sequel. Herein, I think, lies the solution 
of your difficulties. I have recourse to God and His attributes 
in order to remove them. But God, Aristes, does not remain 
idle, with arms folded, as certain philosophers maintain. Cer- 
tainly, if God still acts, you may ask: When will one be able to say 
that He is the cause of certain effects, if one is not permitted to 
have recourse to Him in the case of those effects which are general, 
which one sees clearly have no necessary or essential relation 
with their natural causes ? Keep, however, what I have just told 
you clearly in your memory, my dear Aristes, give it a place there 
among all that you hold most precious. And although you may 
understand it quite well, allow me to repeat in a few words what 
is essential in it so that you may return to it without difficulty 
when you are in a position to meditate upon it. 


XI. There is no necessary relation between the two substances 
of which we are composed. The modifications of our bodies 
cannot, by their own activity, change those of our minds. Never- 
theless, the modifications of a certain part of the brain which I 
will not further determine are always followed by modifications 
or feelings of our soul ; and this solely in consequence of the con- 

9 


130 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


tinual exercise of the laws of the union of these two substances,— 
that is to say, to speak more clearly, in consequence of the con- 
stant and ever effective will of the author of our being. There is 
no relation of causality between a body and a mind. What am 
Isaying? That there is no relation between a mind and a body. 
I am saying more. There is no real relation between one body 
and another, between one mind and another. In a word, no 
created thing can act upon another by an activity whichis its own. 
This I will prove to you presently.’ But, at least, itis evident that 
a body, that extension, a purely passive substance, cannot operate 
by its own activity upon a mind, upon a being of another nature 
and infinitely more excellent than it. Thus, it is clear that, in 
the union of soul and body, there is no other bond than 
the efficacy of divine and immutable decrees, an efficacy never 
without its effects. God has then willed, and wills without 
ceasing, that the various disturbances of the brain shall always 
be followed by the various thoughts of the mind with which 
it is in union. And it is this constant and efficient will of the 
Creator which causes the union of these two substances. For 
there is no other nature, I mean no other natural laws, than the 
efficient volitions of the Omnipotent. 


XII. Do not ask, Aristes, why God wills to unite minds to 
bodies. The fact is unquestionable, but the principal reasons 
for it hitherto have remained unknown to philosophy, and 
perhaps even religion does not teach us. There is, however, 
one reason which it may be well to offer to you. God apparently 
desired to give us, in respect to His Son, a victim which we could 
offer to Him, He desired to give us an opportunity of meriting 
by a kind of sacrifice and annihilation of self the possession of 
eternal happiness. This, assuredly, seems just and in conformity 
with the order of things. Now we are on our trial in our body. 
It is through it, as occasional cause, that we receive from God 
thousands upon thousands of different feelings which through 
the grace of Jesus Christ constitute the occasion of our merits. 
As I will prove to you presently, the general cause was in need of 
an occasional cause, in order that, although always acting in a 
uniform and constant manner, it should be able to produce in 
His work by very simple means, and according to laws which are 
always the same, an infinity of different effects. It is, however, 

* Dialogue VIII. 


ON METAPHYSICS 131 


by no means the case that God could find no other occasional 
causes than bodies, in order to give to His procedure that simplicity 
and uniformity which characterise it. There are, indeed, other such 
causes in the angelic nature. These blessed spirits are perhaps 
reciprocally to one another and to themselves, by means of the 
different movements of their will, the occasional cause of the 
action of God who enlightens them and governs them. But let 
us not speak of what is beyond us. This, however, I can say 
without fear, and it is absolutely necessary in order to make clear 
the subject of our discussion, and I beg of you to keep it well in 
mind so that you can meditate upon it at your leisure. 


XIII. God loves order inviolably and by the necessity of 
His being. He loves, He esteems all things in proportion 
as they are worthy of esteem or love. He hates disorder 
necessarily. This is perhaps clearer and more indisputable 
than the proof I will give you some day,* and which I pass by 
at present, But it is obviously a violation of order, that a 
mind which is capable of knowing and loving God, and which is 
consequently made for this purpose, should be compelled to 
occupy itself with the needs of the body. Hence, as the soul is 
united, to the body and is bound to interest itself in its preserva- 
tion, it was necessary that it should be given warnings which 
are instinctive—I mean warnings which are prompt but con- 
vincing of the relation in which the bodies of our environment 
stand to those which we animate. 


XIV. God alone is our light and the cause of our happiness. 
He possesses the perfections of all beings. He has the ideas of 
them all. He contains, therefore, in His wisdom all truths, 
speculative or practical; for all these truths are nothing but 
relations of magnitude and perfection which subsist between the 
ideas, as I will prove to you presently.” He alone, then, ought to 
be the object of attention of our mind, since He alone is capable 
of enlightening it and of regulating all its movements, since He 
alone is above us. Assuredly, a mind occupied with created things, 
turning its attention towards created things, however excellent 
they may be, is not in the order in which God requires it to be, nor 
in the state in which God has placed it. But, if we had to examine 
all the relations which the bodies of our environment have to 

* Cf, Dialogue VIII. * Ibid, 


182 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


a given position of our own, in order to discover whether and 
how and to what an extent we ought to have commerce with 
them, that would take up a good deal of our time, indeed, 
it would entirely usurp the capacity of the mind. And, assuredly, 
our body would not be the better for it. It would soon be 
destroyed in some unforeseen manner; for our wants change so 
often and sometimes so quickly that it would require a vigilance 
of which we are incapable not to be overtaken by some fatal 
accident. When would one think of eating, for example, or 
of what to eat or when to cease eating? How busy would a 
mind which guides and exercises its body be if it had to know, 
at every step which the body is made to take, that it is moving 
in a fluid air which cannot wound it or trouble it with cold or 
heat, wind or rain, or with some malignant or corrupt vapour; 
that there is not at each spot where the person wishes to place 
his foot a sharp or hard body capable of hurting him; that he 
must lower the head promptly to avoid a stone, and look after his 
equilibrium to prevent himself from falling! A man always occu- 
pied in this way with the whole mechanism of his body and with 
an infinity of objects in his environment could never think of the 
true goods, or at any rate could not think of the true goods as 
much as they demand or consequently as much as is their due, 
seeing that our mind is made and can only be made for the 
purpose of occupying itself with those goods which can illumine it 
or make it happy. 


XV. Thus, it is evident that God, willing to conjoin minds 
with bodies, had to establish for an occasional cause of the con- 
fused awareness we have of the presence of objects and of their 
properties as in relation to us, not our attention which deserves 
clear and distinct knowledge, but the various disturbances 
in these same bodies. He had to give us distinct proofs not 
of the nature or properties of the things around us but of the 
relation in which they stand to us, so that we should be able 
to work successfully for the preservation of life without having 
to pay incessant attention to our needs. He had, so to speak, 
to undertake the task of warning us at the proper time and 
place, by means of anticipatory feelings, of all that concerns 
the good of the body, so as to give us full opportunity to occupy 
ourselves in the pursuit of the true goods. He had to give 
us curt warnings of all that concerns the body, so as to convince 


ON METAPHYSICS 133 


us promptly, vivid proofs so as to determine us effectively, certain 
and irrefutable proofs so as to preserve us more surely; yet proofs 
which are confused, although indubitable, not of the relations 
which subsist between the objects themselves, in which relations 
the evidence of truth consists, but of the relations in which they 
stand to our body situated as it is atthe time. I make the latter 
reservation because we find, for example, or ought to find, tepid 
water warm if we touch it with a cold hand, and cold if we touch 
it with a warm hand. We find it, or ought to find it, pleasant 
when thirsty ; but when our thirst is quenched we find it tasteless 
and unpleasant. Let us admire, then, Aristes, the wisdom of the 
laws of the conjunction of soul and body; and, though all our 
senses should tell us that sense qualities are in the objects, let 
us attribute to corporeal things only what we see clearly belongs to 
them, after having consulted the ideas which represent them. For 
since the senses give us different accounts of the same things 
according to the interest which they have in them, since they 
invariably contradict themselves when the welfare of the body 
requires, we must regard them as false witnesses with reference 
to truth, but as faithful monitors so far as the preservation and 
the conveniences of life are concerned. 


XVI. ARIsTES. How moved Iam by what you are telling 
me and how abashed at having been all my life the dupe of 
these false witnesses! But they speak with so much assurance 
and force that they bring, so to speak, conviction and certitude to 
our minds. They issue commands with so much haughtiness and 
alacrity that one yields without examination. How can one enter 
into oneself when they are calling upon us and luring us outward? 
How can one hear the deliverances of inner truth in the midst of 
the noise and the tumult which they cause ? You have explained 
to me that light cannot be a modification of corporeal things. 
But as soon as I open my eyes I begin to doubt this truth. The 
sun which strikes my eyes dazzles me and disconcerts all my ideas. 
I understand now that if I pressed the point of this pin on my 
hand, all that it could do would be to make a small hole in it. 
Yet if I did so really it seems to me that it would give rise to much 
pain. I assuredly could not doubt this at the moment of the prick. 
What power and force the senses possess to lead us into error! 
What disorder, Theodore! And yet even in this disorder the 
wisdom of the Creator shines forth brilliantly. It was neces- 


184 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


sary that light and colours should be spread over objects so that 
they could be distinguished without difficulty. It was necessary 
that fruits should be as though they possessed flavours in order 
that they should be eaten with pleasure. It was necessary that 
pain should penetrate to the pricked finger in order that the 
strength of the feeling should warn us to withdraw it. There 
is, then, an infinite wisdom in this order established by God. I 
agree, I cannot doubt it. But at the same time I find a disorder 
which is very great and which seems to me unworthy of the 
wisdom and the goodness of our God. For, after all, for us 
unhappy creatures this order is a fruitful source of errors and 
the inevitable cause of the greatest evils of life. The tip of my 
finger is pricked, and I suffer, I am unhappy, I am incapable of 
thinking of the true good. My soul can attend to nothing but 
my injured finger and is entirely filled with pain. What a strange 
misfortune! A mind to depend upon a body and because of 
it to lose the sight of truth! To have one’s attention divided, 
indeed to be more occupied with one’s finger than with the 
real end of one’s being! What disorder, Theodore! There is 
assuredly some mystery in all this. I beseech you to unravel 
it for me. 


XVII. THEODORE. Yes, without a doubt there is some 
mystery in this. How much philosophers are indebted to religion, 
my dear Aristes, for it alone can help them out of the perplexity 
in which they find themselves! Everything in the procedure of 
God seems to be self-contradictory and nothing to be uniform 
any longer. Good and evil—I speak of physical evil—have not 
two different principles. It is the same God who gives rise to both 
by means of the same laws. But sin brings it about that God, 
without effecting any change in His laws, becomes for all sinners 
the just avenger of their crimes. I cannot tell you at present 
all that would be necessary in order to make the matter thoroughly 
clear. I will, however, state the solution of your difficulty in a 
few words. 

God is wise. He judges all things well. He esteems them 
in exact proportion to the degree in which they are worthy of 
esteem. He loves them in proportion as they are worthy of 
love. In a word, God loves order invincibly. He follows it 
inviolably. He cannot belie Himself. He cannot sin. Now, minds 
are worthier than corporeal things, hence (observe this), though 


ON METAPHYSICS 135 


God can conjoin minds and bodies, He cannot subject the former 
to the latter. That a prick should serve as a reminder and warning 
to me is just and conformable to order, but that it should afflict 
me and make me unhappy, that it should absorb me despite 
myself, that it should disconcert my ideas and hinder me from 
thinking of the truly good,—that certainly is a violation of order. 
Such a thing is unworthy of the wisdom and goodness of the 
Creator. Thisreason tells me quite clearly. Nevertheless, experi- 
ence convinces me that my mind depends on my body. I suffer, 
I am unhappy, I am incapable of thought when I am pricked, 
of this there can be no doubt. We have, then, here a flagrant 
contradiction between the certainty of experience and the evidence 
of reason. See, however, the solution. The mind of man has 
lost its worth and its excellence in the eyes of God. We are no 
longer such as God originally made us. We are born in sin and 
corruption, deserving of the divine anger and totally unworthy of 
thinking of God, of loving Him, of adoring Him, of delighting in 
Him. He wills no longer to be our good and the cause of our 
happiness ; and if Heis still the cause of our being and does not 
annihilate us, it is because in Hisclemency He has given us a means 
of reparation through which we can have access to Him, intercourse 
with Him, community of true goods with Him, in accordance with 
the eternal decree by which He has resolved to reunite all things 
in our divine leader, the MamGod, predestined from all 
eternity to be the foundation, the architect, the victim and the 
sovereign Priest of the spiritual temple wherein the divine Majesty 
will dwell for evermore. Thus, reason disposes of this terrible 
contradiction which has disturbed you so much. It renders 
intelligible for us the sublimest truth. But this is because 
faith leads us to understanding, and because by its authority 
it changes our doubt and our uncertain and perplexing experiences 
into conviction and certitude. 


XVIII. Hold fast then, Aristes, to the thought which reason 
has engendered within you, the thought, namely, that the infinitely 
perfect Being follows for ever an order immutable as its law, 
and that thus He can well conjoin that which is most noble with 
that which is least noble, the mind with the body, but that He 
cannot subject the former to the latter, that He cannot deprive 
it of liberty and of the exercise of its most excellent functions, 
that He cannot so absorb it as to prevent it, even by the most 


136 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


cruel pains, losing sight of its supreme good for the vilest of 
created things. And conclude from all this that before the Fall 
there were exceptions favourable to man in the laws of 
the conjunction of soul and body. Or, rather, conclude from 
all this that there was a law, since abolished, according to 
which the will of man was the occasional cause of that 
arrangement of the brain in which the soul is immune from 
the action of objects, though the body be affected by them, 
and thus the soul was never interrupted, despite the body, in its 
meditation and ecstacy. Do you not feel in yourself some 
remnant of this power when you are deeply absorbed in any- 
thing and the light of truth penetrates you and delights you ? 
Probably noise, colours, odours, or any other of the less pressing 
and less vivid sensations, are then hardly capable of interrupting 
you. Yet you are not above pain, you find it unpleasant despite 
all efforts of the mind. I speak of you, Aristes, relying on my 
own experiences. But in order to speak fairly of man when 
innocent and made in the image of God, we must consult the 
divine ideas of the immutable order of things. It is there that 
we can find the model of a perfect man such as our father, Adam, 
was before his sin. Our senses disconcert our ideas and tire our 
attention. But to Adam they spoke with respect. They became 
silent at the least sign. They did not even give him warning 
of the approach of certain objects if he wished it so. He could 
eat without pleasure, look without seeing, sleep without dreaming 
of all the vain phantoms that disconcert our minds or trouble our 
repose.* These are no paradoxes. Consult reason, and do not 
judge, on the basis of what you feel in a disorderly body, of the 
state of the first man in whom everything conformed to the 
immutable order which God follows inviolably. We are sinners, 
but I speak of man in his innocence. The order of things 
does not permit that the mind should be deprived of the liberty 
of its thoughts while the body recoups its strength during sleep. 
The righteous man thought, during this as well as during any other 
time, of whatsoever he wished. Since man, however, has become 
a sinner, he no longer deserves that on his account there should 
be any exceptions to the laws of nature. He deserves to be 
deprived of all power over an inferior nature, since he has 
through rebellion made himself the most despicable of creatures; 


* Van-Helmont, Imago Dei. 


ON METAPHYSICS 137 


he deserves not only to be reduced to nothing but to be 
brought to a state which for him would be worse than 
nothing. 


XIX. Do not cease, then, to admire the wisdom and the 
wonderful order of the laws of the conjunction of soul and body, 
through which we have so many different sensations of the objects 
of our environment. They are very wise. Considering them 
in their original form, they were even advantageous for us in 
every sense; and it is right that they should remain after 
the Fall, though they have sad consequences, for the uniformity 
of God’s action ought not to be dependent upon the irregularity 
of ours. But after man’s rebellion it was not right that the body 
should be perfectly amenable to him. This ought not to be 
except in so far as it is necessary for the sinner to preserve 
his wretched life for some time and to perpetuate the human 
species until the consummation of the work in which posterity is 
to enter by the merits and the power of the coming Redeemer. 
For, all these generations which follow one another, all these 
lands which are peopled by idolaters, the whole natural order 
of the universe which is preserved, have being only in order 
to furnish to Jesus Christ an abundance of material necessary 
for the construction of the eternal temple. A day will come 
when the descendants of the most barbarous peoples will be 
enlightened by the light of the Gospel, and when they will enter 
as a host into the Church of the Elect. Our fathers died in 
idolatry, and we recognise the true God and our adorable Saviour. 
The arm of the Lord is not shortened. His power will extend 
to the most distant nations; and perhaps our descendants will 
relapse into darkness as the light illumines the new world. But 
let me recapitulate, Aristes, in a few words the principal things 
which I have told you, so that you may retain them without 
difficulty and make them the subject of your meditations. 


XX. Man is made up of two substances, mind and body. 
Thus, there are two quite different kinds of goods to distinguish 
and to examine, those of the mind and those of the body. God 
has, moreover, given to man two very safe means for discerning 
these different goods, namely, reason for the goods of the mind, the 
senses for those of the body, clearness of light for the true goods, 
and a confused instinct for the false goods. I call the goods of the 


1388 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


body false goods or deceiving goods because they are not such 
as they appear to our senses; and, though they be good with 
reference to the preservation of life, they have not this power 
for good in consequence of their own nature but in consequence 
of the divine will or of the natural laws of which they are the 
occasional causes. I cannot now explain this further. But it 
was fit that the mind should sensuously perceive qualities to be in 
corporeal things, though these things do not really possess them, 
in order that it should not indeed love or fear them, but take 
them up or reject them according to the pressing needs of the 
machine, the delicate springs of which require a vigilant and 
prompt watch. In order that the mind should take interest 
in the preservation of the body, it was necessary that it 
should have a kind of reward for the service which it rendered 
to that body which God has required it to preserve. This is 
now the cause of our errors and prejudices. This is the cause 
which brings it about that, not content to take up certain cor- 
poreal things, and to withdraw from others, we are foolish enough 
to love or fear them. In aword, this is the cause of the corruption 
of our heart, all movements of which should be directed towards 
God, and of the blindness of our soul, the whole of whose thoughts 
should be engaged with nothing but light. If we are careful we 
may note that it is because we do not make of the means of 
which I have just spoken the use for which God has given them to 
us, and because instead of consulting our reason in order to discover 
truth, instead of listening only to the evidence which accompanies 
all clear ideas, we yield to a confused and deceiving instinct, 
reliable only so far as the goods of the body are concerned. Now 
this the first man did not do before his sin ; for without a doubt 
he did not confuse the modifications of which the mind is 
capable with the modifications of extension. His ideas, then, 
were not confused, and his senses, being in perfect submission, 
did not hinder him from consulting reason. 


XXI. At present the mind is punished just as it is rewarded 
through its connection withthe body. If we are pricked, we suffer, 
however great an effort we make not to think of the matter. 
That is true ; but, as I have said before, it is so because it is 
not right that there should be any exceptions to the laws of nature 
in favour of a rebel, or, rather, that we should have a power over 
our body which we do not deserve. Suffice it for us, that by 


ON METAPHYSICS 139 


the grace of Jesus Christ, the troubles to which we are subject 
to-day will be to-morrow the means of our triumph and our 
glory. Weare not sensible of the true goods. Meditation shocks 
us. We are not naturally moved by an anticipation of pleasure 
where that which perfects our minds is concerned. The true good 
deserves to be loved by reason alone. It should be loved with 
a love which is deliberate, with an enlightened love, and not 
with that blind love which instinct inspires. It surely deserves our 
application and ourcare. It hasno need, as corporeal things have, 
of borrowed qualities, in order to make itself loved by those who 
know it perfectly ; andif at present we have, in order to love it, 
to be reminded of spiritual delectation, it is because we are weak 
and corrupt, because lust leads us astray, and because in order 
to conquer it it is necessary that God should inspire us 
with desires which are altogether holy; it is so because, dragged 
down as we are towards the earth by a heavy weight, we need 
a counter-balancing weight to lift us towards heaven, if we are 
ever to regain the equilibrium of perfect freedom. 


XXII. Let us, therefore, my dear Aristes, incessantly enter 
into ourselves, and endeavour to silence not only our senses 
but our imagination and our passions. I have spoken only of 
the senses, because it is from them that the imagination and the 
passions derive all the malignant influence and power which 
they have. Generally, all that comes to the mind through the 
body solely as a result of natural laws is for the body alone. 
We need not, therefore, give any attention to it. But let us 
follow the light of reason which ought to guide the judgments 
of our mind and regulate the movements of our heart. We 
must distinguish the soul from the body and the very different 
modifications of which these two substances are capable, and 
reflect often upon the wonderful order and wisdom of the general 
laws of their conjunction. It is by reflections of this kind that 
one obtains a knowledge of one’s self and that one gets rid of 
an infinite number of prejudices. It is by their means that 
one learns to know man; and we have to live amongst men and 
with ourselves. It is by their means that the whole universe 
appears to our mind in the way it does, that it appears, 
Isay, stripped of a thousand beauties which appertain to us alone, 
but with contrivances and movements which arouse admiration 
in us for the wisdom of their author. Lastly, it is, as we have 


140 FOURTH DIALOGUE 


just seen, by their means that one recognises vividly not only 
the corruption of nature and the need of a Mediator—two great 
principles of our faith—but an infinity of other truths which 
are essential to religion and morality. Continue, then, Aristes, 
to meditate, as you have already begun to do, and you will see 
the truth of what I have told you. You will see that the profes- 
sion of meditation ought to be that of all rational persons. 

ARISTES. This word ‘‘ meditation ’”’ troubles me, now that I 
partly understand what you have told me, and that I am so 
moved by it. Owing to the blind contempt that I had for reason, 
I thought, Theodore, that you were labouring under a kind of 
illusion, and I was bound to treat you and some of your friends 
as dreamers (médttatifs). I thought it was clever and witty to 
poke fun in that way; and I am sure you know quite well what 
is meant by that sort of thing. I assure you, nevertheless, that 
I did not wish this epithet to be applied to you; and that I have 
removed the bad effect of the term (raillerie) by means of eulogies 
which were earnest and which I have always believed to be true. 

THEODORE. I amsureofit, Aristes. You have amused your- 
self a little at my expense. Iam glad. But I think that to-day 
you will not be sorry to learn that this has cost you more than it 
has cost me. Do you know there was present in that company 
one of these ‘“‘ meditators,’’ who as soon as you had gone felt 
himself obliged, not to defend me, but the honour of the universal 
Reason against whom you offended by trying to turn people 
against consulting it? At first when the ‘ meditator”’ had 
spoken everybody rose to defend you. Yet, after he had endured 
some jokes and the contemptuous airs inspired by the imagination 
when in revolt against reason, he pleaded the cause of reason so 
well that imagination yielded. They did not jeer at you, Aristes. 
The *‘ meditator ’’ appeared grieved by your blindness. Astothe 
others, they were somewhat moved by anger, so that if you 
are still of the same mind—you are far from being so—I should 
advise you not to go to Philander’s to air your jokes and com- 
monplaces against reason, in order to throw ridicule upon the 
taciturn “‘ meditators,” 

ARISTES. Depend upon it, Theodore! I am glad to learn 
this news. The evil which I am afraid that I did was soon 
remedied. But to whom am I obliged for this favour? Is it 
not to Theotimus ? 

THEODORE. You will know as soon as I am quite convinced 


ON METAPHYSICS 141 


that your love for the truth will be great enough to extend even 
to those to whom you owe this somewhat ambiguous obligation. 

ARISTES. This obligation is not ambiguous. I protest 
that if it is Theotimus, I shall love him for it and esteem him 
for it all the more, since, the more I meditate upon the matter, 
the more I feel the growth of my inclination towards those 
who are in search of truth, those whom I called “‘ meditators ”’ 
when I was foolish enough to regard as dreamers those who 
give to reason the assiduity which is its due. Oblige me, therefore, 
by telling me who this good man is who wanted to spare me the 
confusion which I deserved and also upheld the honour of reason 
so well without throwing ridicule upon me. I should like to 
have him as a friend, I should like to earn his good graces, and 
if I cannot accomplish this, I should at least hke him to know 
that I am no longer such as I was. 

THEODORE. Very well, then, Aristes, he shall know it. And 
if you want to be among the number of the “ meditators,’’ I can 
promise that he will also be among the number of your good 
friends. Meditate, and all will be well. You will win him over 
soon when he sees in you some enthusiasm for truth, submission 
to faith, and a profound respect for our common Master, 


FIFTH DIALOGUE 


The function of the senses in the sciences—Our sensations contain a clear 
idea and a confused feeling—The idea does not belong to the sen- 
sation—It is the idea which enlightens the mind and the feeling which 
stimulates it and renders it attentive; for it is by means of feeling 
that the intelligible idea becomes sensible. 


ARISTES. I have made great way since you left me, Theodore. 
I have discovered land. I have reviewed in a general manner all 
the objects of my senses, under the guidance, as it seems to 
me, of my reason alone. I have never been more surprised, 
though I have already become somewhat accustomed to these new 
discoveries. Good God! What poverty I recognised in what 
till a few days ago I thought finished excellence, but what 
wisdom, what grandeur, what wonderful features, in all that 
the world despises! The man who sees only with his eyes is 
indeed a stranger in his own country. He admires everything, 
and knows nothing, too happy if what startles him does not 
bring death with it. Perpetual illusions arise from the objects 
of sense, everything deceives us, everything poisons us, every- 
thing speaks to the soul only for the sake of the body. Reason 
alone obscures nothing. How pleased I am with it and with 
you for having taught me to consult it, for having lifted me 
above my senses and above myself, so as to contemplate its 
light! I have recognised very clearly, it seems to me, the truth 
of all that you have told me. Yes, Theodore, I am indeed pleased 
to tell you: the human mind is enveloped in darkness, its own 
modifications do not illumine it, its substance, spiritual though 
it be, has nothing intelligible in it, its senses, its imagination, 
its passions, lead it astray at every moment. To-day I believe 
I am in the position to assure you that I am fully convinced, . 
I speak to you with the confidence which the sight of the truth 
gives me. Try me and see whether I am too bold in speaking 


after this fashion. 
142 


ON METAPHYSICS 143 


I. THEODORE. I believe what you are telling me, Aristes ; for 
I feel sure that an hour’s serious meditation is sufficient to lead 
a mind like yours a long way. Nevertheless, in order to give me 
greater assurance of the progress you have made, please answer 
me. You see this line AB. Let it be divided in two parts at 
the point C, or at any other point. I will prove to you that the 
square of the whole is equal to the squares of each of the parts, 
together with the two parallelograms formed on the two parts. 

ARISTES. What are you establishing by this? Who does 
not know that to multiply a whole is the same as to multiply 
its parts ? 

THEODORE. You know it. But let us suppose you do not 
know it. I wish to make your eyes see the proof, and thus to 
show you that the senses are capable of making you see the 
truth clearly. 

ARISTES. Let us see, 

THEODORE. Look carefully. That is all I ask. Without 
entering into yourself to consult reason, you will discover an 
evident truth, ABODE is the square of AB. But the square 
equals all that it contains. It is equal to itself. Therefore it 
is equal to the two other squares on each of the parts m and n, 
and to the two parallelograms formed on the parts AC and CB. 





ARISTES. This stares me_in the face. 

THEODORE. Very good. But, what is more, it is evident. 
Hence, there are evident truths which ‘stare you in the face.” 
Thus, obviously, our senses do teach us truth. 


144 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


ARISTES. A beautiful truth this is indeed and so difficult to dis- 
cover! Have you nothing but that to say in defence of the senses ? 

THEODORE. You do not answer, Aristes. It is not reason 
which inspires this evasion. ForI ask you, is not that an evident 
truth which your senses have just taught you ? 

ARISTES. Nothing easier. 

THEODORE. Because our senses are excellent teachers. They 
have easy ways of teaching the truth. Reason, on the other hand, 
with its clear ideas leaves usin the dark. This, Aristes, is what one 
would say to you. Prove to an ignorant man, one would say, 
that the square, for example, of I0 equals the squares of 4 
and 6, plus twice the product of these numbers. These ideas 
of numbers are clear, and the truth to be proved is the same. 
as if you were dealing with a line before you of a length of 10 
inches which you divided into two parts of 4 and 6 inches 
respectively. Nevertheless, you see that there will be some 
difficulty in making it intelligible because this principle, that 
to multiply a number by itself is the same thing as to multiply 
all its parts separately by themselves, is not as clear as the prin- 
ciple that a square equals all the figures which it contains. And 
that is what your eyes teach you, as you have just seen. 


II. But if in your opinion the theorem which your eyes have 
taught you is too easy, here is another which is more difficult. 
I am going to prove to you that the square on the diagonal 
of a square is double the squares on the sides. Open your eyes, 
that is all I ask you. 








ON METAPHYSICS 145 


Look at the figures. Do not your eyes tell you that all these 
triangles, a, b,c, d, e, f, g,h,1, which I take to have and which you 
see have each of thema right angle and two lines equal, are equal 
to one another? SBut you see that the square described on 
the diagonal AB has four of these triangles, while the squares 
described on the sides have two. Therefore, the large square 
is double that of the others. 

ARISTES. Yes, Theodore. But you are reasoning. 

THEODORE. I am reasoning? I look and I see what I am 
telling you. I reason, if you like, but I do so on the basis of the 
faithful testimony of my senses. Only open your eyes and look 
at what I am showing you. This triangle d equals e, and ¢ equals 
6, and on the other hand d equals f and f equals g. Hence, the 
small square equals half the large one. The same holds good 
with the other side. This stares one in the face, as you put it. 
To discover this truth it is sufficient to look carefully at the 
figure, and compare by the help of the movement of the eyes 
the parts of which it is made up. It follows that our senses 
are able to teach us the truth. 

ARISTES. I deny this conclusion, Theodore. It is not the 
senses, but reason combined with the senses, which enlightens 
us and reveals the truth to us. Do you not think that in the 
sensuous view which we have of the figure there is involved at 
the same time the conjunction of the clear idea of extension 
with the confused feeling of the colour by which we are affected ? 
Now, it is from the clear idea of extension, and not from the 
black and white which make it perceptible by the senses, that 
we discover the relations in which this truth consists, from the 
clear idea of extension, I say, which reason possesses, and not 
from the black and white, which are only sensations, or confused 
modifications of our senses, the relations of which it is impossible 
to discover. There is always present, on the one hand, a clear 
idea and, on the other hand, a confused feeling in the view which 
we have of sensible objects—an idea which represents their 
essence and the feeling which admonishes us of their existence— 
an idea which acquaints us with their nature, their properties, 
the relations which they have or may have to one another, in 
a word, atruth and a sensation, which latter makes us feel their 
difference and the bearing which they have upon the conveni- 
ences and preservation of life. 


10 


146 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


III. THEODORE. Isee from your reply that you have covered 
much ground since yesterday. I am satisfied with you, Aristes. 
But, I ask you, is not this colour which you see upon the paper 
itself extended ? Certainly, I see it as extended. Now, this 
being so, I shall be able clearly to discover the relations between 
its parts without thinking of the extension which reason contains. 
The extension of the colour will be sufficient for me, through my 
acquaintance with physics and geometry. 

ArRIsTEsS. I deny, Theodore, that the colour 1s extended. 
We see it as extended, but our eyes deceive us, for the mind 
will never understand how extension can belong to colour. We 
see this whiteness as extended, but it is because we intro- 
duce it into extension owing to the fact that it is through this 
feeling on the part of the soul that we see the paper; or, rather, 
it is because intelligible extension touches the soul and modifies 
it in a certain way, and through this modification the intelligible 
extension becomes sensible to the soul. What, Theodore! 
Would you say that pain is extended because when one has 
gout or rheumatism one feels it as extended ? Would you say 
that sound is extended because one hears it as filling the whole 
air? Would you say that light is extended over all those large 
spaces because they all look to us luminous ? Since we are dealing 
here with modifications or feelings of the soul, and since the 
soul does not derive from its own resources the idea which 
it has of extension, all these qualities are introduced into 
extension and cause it to be felt by the soul, but they are in no 
way extended. 


IV. THEODORE. I agree with you, Aristes, that colour, just 
like pain, is not locally extended. Forsince experience teaches us 
that one can feel pain in an arm which one has no longer, and 
that at night, when asleep, we see colours as extended over 
imaginary objects, it is evident that these are only feelings or 
sensations of the soul which certainly does not fill all the 
places which it sees, since it does not fill any at all, and since 
the modifications of a substance cannot be where the substance 
is not. This is beyond dispute. Pain cannot be locally ex- 
tended in my arm nor colours over the surface of bodies. But 
why do you not think that they are, so to speak, sensibly extended 
—just as the idea of bodies, i.e. intelligible extension, is extended 
intelligibly ? Why do you not think that the light which I see 


ON METAPHYSICS 147 


when I press the corner of my eye, or otherwise, carries with it 
the sensible space which it occupies? Why do you think that it 
must be referred to intelligible extension? In a word, why do 
you think that it is the idea or archetype of bodies which touches 
the soul when it sees or feels the sensible qualities as diffused 
in bodies? 

ARISTES. Because only the archetype of bodies can represent 
their nature, because only the universal Reason can enlighten me 
through the manifestation of its ideas. The substance of the soul 
has nothing in common with matter. The mind does not contain 
the perfections of all the entities which it can know. But there 
is nothing which does not participate in the Divine Being. God 
sees all things in Himself. The soul, on the other hand, cannot 
see all things in itself. It can only discover them in the divine 
and universal Reason. Hence, the extension which I feel and see 
does not belong to me. Else I could, in contemplating myself, 
know the works of God. I could, by considering my own 
modifications attentively, become acquainted with physics and 
several sciences which consist only in the knowledge of the 
relations of extension, as you know quite well. In a word, I 
should be a light unto myself, and I cannot think of that 
without a kind of horror. But, Theodore, kindly clear up the 
difficulty which you have put before me. 


V. THEODORE, It is impossible to do this directly. For 
it would be necessary that the idea or archetype of the soul 
should be disclosed to us. We should, then, see clearly that pain, 
colour, taste and the other feelings or sensations, of the soul, have 
nothing in common with the extension which we feelis joined with 
them. We should see intuitively that there is as much difference 
between the extension which we see and the colour which renders 
it perceptible by us as between the numbers—for example, the 
infinite, or any other intelligible idea that you please—and the 
perception which we have of them; and we should see at the 
same time that our ideas are quite different from our perceptions 
or feelings—a truth which we can only discover by serious 
reflection and a long and difficult process of reasoning. 

But, in order to prove to you indirectly that our feelings 
or sensations do not contain the idea of extension to which 
they are referred, let us suppose that you are looking at the 
colour of your hand, and that at the same time you feel some 


148 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


pain; you would see the colour of your hand as extended, and 
at the same time you would feel the pain as extended Do 
you not agree? 

ARISTES. Yes, Theodore, and even if I touched it I should 
still feel it as extended ; and if I dipped it into warm or cold 
water I should feel the heat and cold as extended. 

THEODORE. Observe, then. Pain is not colour, nor colour 
heat, nor heat cold. Now, the extension of the colour which 
you see when you look at your hand is the same as that of the 
pain, heat or cold which you might thus feel. Hence this exten- 
sion belongs neither to the colour, the pain, nor to any other 
of your feelings. For you would feel as many different exten- 
sions as you had feelings, if our feelings were extended in them- 
selves, as they appear to be, or if the coloured extension which 
we see were not merely a sensation of the soul, like colour, pain, 
or taste, as some of the Cartesians, who know quite well that 
we cannot see objects in themselves, imagine. It is, then, 
Aristes, a single and unique extension which affects us in different 
ways, which acts upon our soul and modifies it through colour, 
heat, pain, etc. But it is not the bodies which we see that 
affect us with these different feelings. For we often see bodies 
which do not exist. Moreover, it is evident that bodies cannot 
act upon the mind, modify or enlighten it, make it happy or 
unhappy by means of agreeable or disagreeable feelings. Neither 
does the soul act upon itself and modify itself by means of pain, 
colour, etc. This needs no proof after what has been said 
already. It is, then, the idea or archetype of bodies which 
affects us in different ways. I mean it is the intelligible sub- 
stance of Reason which acts upon our minds throughits omnipo- 
tent efficacy and which touches it and modifies it with colour, 
taste and pain, by aid of that within it which is representative 
of bodies. 

It is, therefore, no matter for surprise, my dear Aristes, to 
find that you can learn some clear truths through the testimony of 
the senses. For though the substance of the soul be not intelligible 
to the soul itself, and its modifications cannot enlighten it, yet, 
because these modifications are joined to the intelligible exten- 
sion which is the archetype of bodies, and render it sensible, they 
can reveal to us the relations between them—which relations 
constitute the truths of geometry and physics. But it is always 
true to say that the soul cannot be its own light, that its modi- 


ON METAPHYSICS 149 


fications are but obscure, and that it can discover exact truths 
only in the ideas which the universal Reason contains. 


VI. Artistes. I think I understand what you are saying. 
Yet as it is abstract I shall meditate upon it at my leisure. 
It is not pain or colour in itself which teaches me the 
relations that subsist between bodies. I can discover these 
relations only in the idea of extension which represents them, 
and this idea, though joined to colour and pain, the feelings or 
sensations which render it sensible, is not a modification. This 
idea becomes sensible or makes itself felt only because the intel- 
ligible substance of Reason acts upon the soul and impresses 
upon it such and such a modification or feeling, and thereby 
reveals to it, so to speak, though in a confused way, that a 
certain body exists. For when ideas of bodies become sensible, 
we conclude that there are bodies which act upon us, 
whereas when these ideas are intelligible only, we naturally 
believe that there is nothing outside of us which is acting upon 
us. The reason of this is, it seems to me, that it depends upon 
ourselves whether we think of extension, while it does not depend 
upon ourselves whether we feelit. Since we feel extension despite 
ourselves there must be something other than ourselves which im- 
presses this feeling upon us. Now, we believe that this other thing 
is nothing but what we actually feelh Whence we conclude that 
it is the bodies of our environment that cause in us the feelings or 
sensations which we have of them; but in this we are always 
mistaken. We do not doubt the existence of these bodies, and 
in this, too, we are often mistaken. But as we think of bodies 
and imagine them, whenever we will, we conclude that it is our 
volitions which are the true cause of the ideas which we have 
of them, and of the images which we form of them. And the 
inner feeling which we have of the actual effect of our attention 
confirms us in this false thought. Though God alone can act 
upon us and enlighten us, yet because His operation is not sensible, 
we attribute to the objects all that He performs within us without 
our aid, and we attribute to our own power whatever He performs 
within us in consequence of our volitions. What do you think, 
Theodore, of this reflection ? 


VII. THEODORE. Itis very judicious, Aristes, and comes from 
athinker. Butlet us return to the sensuous demonstration which 


150 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


I gave you of the equality between the square of a diagonal 
of a square and the two squares of the sides. And let us observe 
that this demonstration derives its evidence and generality 
only from the general and clear idea of extension, from the 
straightness and equality of the lines, the angles, the triangles, 
and not from the white and black which renders all these sensible 
and particular without rendering them in themselves more 
intelligible or clearer. Note that it is evident from my demon- 
stration that generally every square described on the diagonal of 
a square equals the two squares of the sides, but that it is by 
no means certain that this particular square which you see before 
your eyes is equaltothetwo others. For you are not even certain 
that what you see is a square, and that this particular line is 
straight, or that angle a right angle. The relations which 
your mind conceives between the magnitudes are not the same 
as the relations of these figures. Note, finally, that though 
our senses do not enlighten the mind by themselves, yet because 
they render sensible the ideas which we have of bodies, they 
rouse our attention, and in this way they lead us indirectly to 
apprehension of the truth. It follows that we ought to make 
use of our senses in the study of all the sciences which have for 
their subject matter the relations of extension, and not fear 
that they will lead us into error, providing that we strictly follow 
the rule only to judge of things by means of the ideas which 
represent them, and not by the sensations which we have of them, 
a rule of the highest importance, and one which we ought never 
to forget. 


VIII. AristEs. All this is profoundly true, Theodore, and so 
I have understood the matter ever since I have thought seri- 
ously about it.* Nothing is more certain than that our states 
of mind are obscure, that they do not enlighten the mind by 
themselves, and that we do not know clearly all that we feel 
most vividly. This square here is not such as I see it. It 
is not of the magnitude that I see. To you certainly it seems 
larger or smaller than to me. The colour which I see does not 
belong toit. Perhapsto youit appearsto have anothercolour than 
it does to me. It is not properly this square whichI see. I judge 
that itis traced on this paper, and it is not impossible that there 
is present here neither paper nor square, just as it is certain 

t Cf. Recherche, Bk. I,and Réponse aulivre des vraies et des fausses Idées. 


ON METAPHYSICS 151 


that there is here no colour. But though my eyes give me so 
many false or doubtful reports concerning the figures described 
on this paper, all this is as nothing compared with the illusions 
of my other senses. The testimony furnished by the eyes very 
often comes near the truth. The sense of vision may aid the 
mind to discover it. It does not wholly conceal its object. In 
rousing my attention it leads me to understanding. But the 
other senses are so false that one is deluded when one trusts 
to their guidance. It is not, however, the case that our eyes 
are given to us for the purpose of discovering the exact truths of 
geometry and physics. They are given to us only to throw light 
upon all the movements of our body in relation to the bodies of 
our environment for the convenience and preservation of life ; and, 
in order to preserve life, it is necessary that we should have some 
kind of knowledge, approximating somewhat to the truth, of sensible 
objects. It is for this purpose that we have, for example, a certain 
sensation of the size of a given body at a given distance. For if 
such a body were too far to be able to injure us, or if, being near, 
it were too small, we should not fail to lose sight of it. To our 
eyes it would be as non-existent, though it would still subsist 
for the mind, and though, so far as it is concerned, division could 
never annihilate it; because the relation of a very large body, 
but at a long distance, or of a body which is near, but too small 
to injure us, the relation, I say, of these bodies to ours is nil, 
or ought not to be perceived by the senses which speak and 
ought to speak only for the conservation of life. All this seems 

evident to me and in conformity with what has passed through 
_ my mind during the time of my meditation. 

THEODORE. I see quite well, Aristes, that you have travelled 
very far into the land of truth, and through the communion 
which you have had with Reason you have acquired riches more 
precious and rare than those which are brought to us from the 
New World. You have found the source, and have drunk 
from it; and, behold, you are rich for ever, if only you do not 
leave it. You have no longer need either of me or of anyone 
else, having discovered the faithful Master who enlightens and 
enriches all those who are attached to Him. 

ARISTEs. What, Theodore! Do you wish to break up our 
discussions already? I know quite well that it is with the 
universal Reason that one must philosophise. But I do not 
know the way in which this must be done. Reason itself will 


152 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


teach me. That is not impossible. Yet I cannot hope for this if 
I have not a faithful and vigilant monitor to guide and encourage 
me. Good-bye to philosophy if you abandon me, for left to 
myself I should be afraid of going astray. I shall soon take the 
replies which I make to myself for those of our common Master. 


IX. THEODORE. I have no mind to leave you, my dear 
Aristes. For now that you meditate upon everything one tells 
you, I hope that you will prevent in me the evil which you fear 
would befall you. We have all of us need of each other, though 
we receive nothing from anyone. You have taken literally 
a word thrown out in honour of Reason. Yes, it is from it alone 
that we receive light. But it makes use of those to whom it 
communicates itself, for the purpose of recalling to itself its 
lost children and to bring them through their senses to intel- 
ligence. Do you not know, Aristes, that Reason itself has assumed 
bodily form in order to be accessible to all men, to strike the 
eyes and ears of those who can see and hear only through the 
senses ? Men have seen with their eyes the Eternal Wisdom, 
the invisible God who dwells within them. They have touched 
with their hands, as the well-beloved disciple says, the Word 
that endows with life. The Inner Truth has assumed external 
form, in order to teach us, coarse and stupid as we are, ina 
sensible and palpable manner the eternal commands of the 
Divine Law—commands which it issues to us incessantly within 
us, but which we hear not, given up as we are to what is out- 
ward. Do you not know that these great truths which faith 
teaches us are deposited in the Church, and that we can learn 
them only through the visible authority which emanates from 
the incarnate Wisdom ? It is, it is true, ever Inner Truth which 
teaches us. But it makes use of all possible means in order 
to bring us back to itself and to fill us with intelligence. Fear 
not, then, that I shall leave you. For I hope that it will make 
use of you for the purpose of preventing me from abandoning 
it, and from taking my own imagination and reveries for its 
divine oracles. 

ARISTES. You do mea great honour. But I see I must accept 
it, since it rebounds to Reason, our common Master. 

THEODORE. I do you the honour of believing you to be 
rational. This honour is a great one. For through Reason every 
man, when he consults it and follows it, becomes superior to all 


ON METAPHYSICS 153 


created things. By it he judges and condemns. But do not 
suppose that Iam yielding to you. Do not suppose either that I 
-amraising myself above you. I yield only to Reason, which may 
perhaps speak to me through you, just as it speaks to you through 
my mediation. I raise myself only above the brutes, above 
those who abandon the most essential of their qualities. Never- 
theless, my dear Aristes, though we are both of us rational, let 
us not forget that we are very liable to error because we can 
both of us come to a decision without waiting for the infallible 
judgment of the just judge, without waiting for the evidence 
to wring, so to speak, our consent from us. For if we always 
honoured Reason by letting it utter its decrees it would make 
us infallible. But instead of waiting for its deliverances, instead 
of following its light step by step, we anticipate it and go astray. 
Impulsive as we are, we are seized with impatience at having to 
remain attentive and immobile. Our wants press upon us and the 
enthusiasm which we have for the true good precipitates us fre- 
quently into the greatest evils. For we are free to follow the light 
of Reason or to grope in the dark under the false and deceiving 
gleam of our own states of mind. Nothing is more pleasant 
than to follow blindly the impressions of instinct. On the other 
hand, nothing is more difficult than to hold fast to the sublime 
and delicate ideas of truth despite the weight of the body which 
hinders the mind. Nevertheless, let us both try to sustain one 
another, my dear Aristes, without trusting each other too much. 
Perhaps our feet will not slip at the same time, provided we 
advance very gently and are as careful as possible not to lean 
on a poor support. 

ARISTES. Let us advance a little, Theodore. What do you 
fear? Reason is an excellent support. There is no succession 
in clear ideas. They do not yield totime. They do not accommo- 
date themselves to particular interests. They do not alter their 
deliverances like our states of mind, which speak for or against 
anything according as the body solicits them. I am fully 
convinced that we must follow the ideas which alone shed 
light, and that our feelings and other states of mind can never 
lead us to the truth. Let us proceed to some other matter, 
since I agree with you in regard to all this, 


X. THEODORE. Let us not move so fast, my dear Aristes. 
I am afraid that you are granting me more than I ask, or that 


154 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


you do not yet understand with sufficient distinctness what 
I am saying. Our senses deceive us, it is true, but that is 
mainly because we refer to sensible objects the feelings we have 
of them. Now, there are present in us several feelings which 
we do not refer to them. For example, the feeling of joy, 
sadness, hate, in a word, all the feelings which accompany the 
movements of the soul. The colour is not in the object, the 
pain is not in the body, the heat is neither in the fire nor in 
the body, to which, nevertheless, these feelings are referred. Our 
outer senses are false witnesses. Agreed. But the feelings of 
love and hate, joy and sorrow, are not referred to the objects 
of those feelings. They are felt in the soul, and there they are. 
They are, then, good witnesses, for they speak the truth. 

ARISTES. Yes, Theodore, they speak the truth and the other 
feelings likewise. For when I feel pain, it is true that I feel it, it is 
true even in asense that I suffer it through the action of the object 
which touches me. Here aresome great truths! Whatthen! Isit 
the case that the feelings of love, hate, and the other passions are 
not referred to the objects which are their occasion? Do they 
not shed their malignity upon them and represent them to us 
as other than they really are ? As for me, when I have a feeling 
of aversion to anyone I feel inclined to interpret all that he 
does in an evil way. His innocent actions appear criminal. 
I persuade myself that I have good reasons for hating and 
despising him. For all my passions seek justification at the 
expense of him in whom they are centred. If my eyes shed 
different colours over the surface of bodies, my heart likewise 
transfers as much as possible its inner dispositions or certain 
false colours to the objects of its passions. I do not know, 
Theodore, whether the feelings of your heart give rise in you 
to the same effects as mine do in mine. But I can assure you 
that I am more afraid to listen to and follow them than to yield 
to the illusions, often innocent and helpful, of my senses, 


XI. THEODORE. I am not saying, Aristes, that one should 
yield to the hidden impulses of one’s passions, and am well 
pleased to see that you are aware of their power and malignity. 
But you must agree that they teach us certain truths. For, 
at any rate, it is true that I am experiencing much joy at present 
in listening to you. It is very true that the pleasure which 
I feel now is greater than the pleasure I had in our previous 


ON METAPHYSICS 155 


conversations. I know, then, the difference between these two 
pleasures. And I do not know them in any other way than through 
the feeling that I have of them, through the modifications which 
my soul is undergoing—modifications which are, therefore, not so 
obscure that they do not teach me an indisputable truth. 

ARISTES. Sayif you like, Theodore, that you feel this differ- 
ence between your modifications and your pleasures. But pray 
do not say that you know it. God knows it and does not feel 
it. But as for you, you feel it without knowing it. If you 
had a clear idea of your soul, if you could see its archetype, then 
you would know what you can now only feel, then you would 
know exactly the difference between the various feelings of joy 
which your kindness to mecalls forthin your heart. Yet, assuredly, 
you do not know it. Compare, Theodore, the feeling of joy which 
you experience now with that of the other day, and tell me 
precisely the relation that subsists between them, and then 
I will believe you that your states of mind are known to you. 
For one knows things only when one knows the relations between 
them. You know that one pleasure is greater than another. 
But how much greater? We know that a square inscribed in 
a circle is smaller than the circle, but we do not on that account 
know the quadrature of the circle, for we do not know the 
relation of the circle to the square. We can approximate to 
it ad infinitum and see clearly that the difference between the 
circle and such other figure can besmaller than any given quantity. 
But note that we can do so because we have a clear idea of 
extension. For the difficulty which we have in discovering the 
relation of the circle to the square is due only to the smallness 
of our intellect ; whereas it is the obscurity of our feelings and 
the darkness of our modifications which makes impossible the 
discovery of their relations. Were we endowed with the genius 
of the sublimest intellect, we could never, it is clear to me, dis- 
cover the relations of our states of mind, if God did not reveal 
to us the archetype on the model of which He has made us. 
For you have convinced me that we can know beings and their 
modifications only by the eternal, immutable and necessary 
ideas which represent them. 


XII. THEoporE. That is quite right, Aristes. Our senses 
and our passions can never enlighten us. But what say you about 
our imagination ? The imagination forms such clear and distinct 


156 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


images of the geometric figures that you cannot deny it is by 
the help of them that we cultivate this science. 

ARISTES. Do you think, Theodore, that I have already for- 
gotten what you have just told me or that I have not under- 
stood it? The certainty which characterises the reasoning of 
geometricians, the clearness of the lines and the figures which 
the imagination forms, are due solely to our ideas and not at 
all to our modifications, not at all to the confused traces which 
the flow of the animal spirits leaves behind it. When I imagine 
a figure, when I construct a building in my mind, I work on 
a foundation which does not belong to me. For it is from the 
clear idea of extension, from the archetype of bodies, that 
I derive all the intelligible materials which indicate my design 
to me, all the space which yields my ground-plot. It is out of 
this idea, furnished to me by Reason, that I form within my 
mind the body of my work, it is by aid of the ideas of equality 
and proportion that I fashion it and regulate it—feducing every- 
thing to that arbitrary unity which must be the common measure 
of all the parts of which it is composed, or at least of all the parts 
which can be viewed from the same point and at the same time. 
It is, assuredly, in accordance with intelligible ideas that we 
regulate the course of the animal spirits which traces these 
images or figures of our imagination. And all the clearness 
and certainty these figures possess does not proceed at all 
from the confused feeling which belongs to us, but from 
the intelligible reality which belongs to Reason. It does 
not come from the modification proper and peculiar to us; it 
is an effulgence from the luminous substance of our common 
master. 

I am not able, Theodore, to imagine a square, for example, 
without at the same time conceiving it. And it seems to me 
evident that the image of this square which I form for myself 
is exact and regular only in so far as it corresponds precisely 
to the intelligible idea which I have of the square, i.e. of a space 
bounded by four lines exactly straight, entirely equal, and which 
when joined at their extremities have for their angles perfectly 
tight angles. Now, it is of such a square that I am sure that the 
square of its diagonal equals the squares on the two sides. It is of 
such a square that I feel sure that the diagonal and the sides 
are incommensurable. In a word, it is of such a square that 
the properties can be discovered and be demonstrated to others. 


ON METAPHYSICS 157 


On the other hand, one can know nothing through the confused 
and irregular image which the course of the animal spirits 
traces in the brain. The same is true of all the other figures. 
It follows that geometricians do not derive their knowledge 
from the confused images of their imagination, but solely from 
the clear ideas of Reason. These crude images may perhaps 
sustain their attention, giving bodily form, so to speak, to their 
ideas. But it is the ideas wherein they find sure foundation, 
which convince them of the truth of their science. 


XIII. Do you want me, Theodore, to stop here in order to 
show you the illusions and phantoms of an imagination in revolt 
against Reason, sustained and animated by the passions—those 
alluring phantoms which mislead us, those terrible phantoms 
which inspire us with fear, monsters of whatsoever kind which owe 
their birth to our confusion, and which increase and multiply in a 
moment ? Pure chimeras at bottom, but chimeras on which our 
mind feeds and with which it busies itself with the utmost eager- 
ness. For our imagination finds more reality in the spectres to 
which it gives birth than in the necessary and immutable ideas of 
Eternal Truth. That is because these dangerous spectres affect 
it, while the ideas do not touch it. Of what avail can be 
a faculty so disorderly, a fool who likes to play the fool, a 
fickle one whom we find it so difficult to keep to the point, an 
insolent one who does not fear to interrupt in our most serious 
communions with Reason? I admit, nevertheless, that our 
imagination can make the mind attentive. For it has so much 
charm for it and sway over it that it can make it think willingly 
about whatever affects it. But, apart from the fact that it can 
have relation only to ideas which represent bodies, it is so 
subject to illusion, and so impetuous, that if not constantly 
checked in its movements and tricks and not controlled, it will 
lead you in an instant into the land of chimeras. 

THEODORE. That is quite sufficient, Aristes. I see quite 
well that you understand sufficiently that Reason alone enlightens 
us by means of the intelligible ideas which it contains in its 
all-luminous substance, and that you are perfectly able to dis- 
tinguish its clear ideas from our dark and obscure modifications. 
I advise you, nevertheless, to meditate often upon this matter 
in order to master it so perfectly, and to make yourself so familiar 
with the principles and consequences that follow from it, that 


158 FIFTH DIALOGUE 


you will never by inadvertence take the vivacity of your feelings 
for the evidence of truth. For it is not enough to have realised 
that the general principle underlying our prejudices is that we 
do not distinguish between knowing and feeling, and that instead 
of judging of things by the ideas which represent them, we judge 
of them by the feelings which we have of them. It is necessary 
to fortify ourselves in this fundamental truth by following it 
out to its consequences, Practical principles are never perfectly 
understood until they are made use of in actual application. 
Try, then, by means of continuous and serious thought to acquire 
a strong and blissful habit of being on guard against the surprises 
and hidden impulses of your false and deceiving states of mind. 
There is no task more worthy of a philosopher. For, if we dis- 
tinguish carefully the deliverances of Inner Truth from that 
which we say to ourselves ; if we distinguish that which comes 
immediately from Reason from all that comes to us through 
the body or is occasioned by the body ; that which is immutable, 
eternal, necessary from that which changes at all moments— 
in a word, the evidence of the light from the vivacity of instinct, 
it is hardly possible that we should fall into error. 

ARISTES. I understand quite well all that you are telling me. 
And I have found so much satisfaction in the reflection I have 
already spent on this subject, that you need be under no 
apprehension that I shall not think of it again. Let us pass 
on to some other matter, if you think fit. 

THEODORE. It is too late, Aristes, to enter at present into 
a long discussion. But in which direction do you wish that we 
should turn to-morrow? Please think about it and tell me. 

ARISTES. It is for you to lead me. 

THEODORE. Not at all; it is for you to make a choice. It 
should not be a matter of indifference to you which way I am 
leading you. May it not be that I am deceiving you? May it 
not be that I shall lead you whither you ought not to go? Most 
men, my dear Aristes, busy themselves imprudently with useless 
studies. It is enough for certain people to hear chemistry, 
astronomy, or any other vain and little wanted science praised, 
to throw themselves headlong into it. One person will not 
know whether the soul is immortal, he will perhaps be at a loss 
to prove the existence of God, yet he will solve the most complex 
algebraic equation for you with a surprising facility. Another 
will know all the refinements of language, all the rules of gram- 


ON METAPHYSICS 159 


marians, and will never have meditated upon the command of 
duty. What perversity of mind! An arrogant imagination 
bestows passionate praise upon the knowledge of medallions, 
the poetry of Italians, the language of the Arabs and Persians, 
in the hearing of a young man full of enthusiasm for science. This 
will be sufficient to lead him blindly into this kind of studies ; 
he will neglect the study of man, the rules of morality, and per- 
haps he will forget what is taught to children in their catechism. 
Man is a machine which goes as it is impelled. Chance 
rather than reason is man’s guide. Everybody lives by opinion. 
Everybody is guided by imitation. Men even claim credit for 
following those who are in the front without knowing whither. 
Reflect upon the various studies of your friends, or rather review 
in your mind the direction you have followed in your own 
studies, and see whether you were right in doing what the others 
did. Judge your conduct not by the applause which you have 
received but by the decisive deliverances of Inner Truth ; judge it 
by the Eternal Law, the Immutable Order regardless of the foolish 
thoughts of men. What, Aristes! because everybody devotes 
himself to trifling matters each in his way and according to his 
taste, is it necessary to follow them for fear of being taken for 
a philosopher by some fools? Is it even necessary everywhere 
to follow the philosophers, even in their abstractions and chimeras, 
for fear that they will look upon us as ignorant or as novices? 
Everything should be put in its proper place. Preference should 
be given to the sciences which deserve it. We ought to learn 
what we ought to know, and not allow our head to be filled with 
useless matter, however attractive it may appear, when we are 
lacking in what is essential to us. Think of this, Aristes, and you 
will tell me to-morrow what the subject of our discussion ought 
to be. We have had enough for to-day. 

ARISTES. It is much better that you should tell me your- 
self. 

THEODORE. It is infinitely better that it should be Reason 
which should tell us both. Consult it seriously, and I for my part 
will think of the matter too. 


SIXTH DIALOGUE 


Proofs of the existence of bodies, based on revelation—Two kinds of reve- 
lation—Explanation of the fact that the natural revelations of the 
sensations are a source of error. 


ARISTES. What a difficult question you have given me to solve, 
Theodore! I was indeed right when I said that it was for you 
who know the strong and the weak side of the sciences, the 
utility and fruitfulness of their principles, to regulate my pro- 
cedure in this intelligible world, whither you have transported 
me. For I confess I do not know in which direction to turn. 
What you have taught me will no doubt be of use in prevent- 
ing me from going astray in this unknown country. For this 
purpose I have but to follow the light, step by step, and to 
yield only to the evidence which accompanies clear ideas. But 
it is not enough merely to move onwards, it is incumbent on 
us to know whither we are going. It is not enough to keep 
on discovering new truths incessantly, it is incumbent upon 
us to know where those fruitful truths are to be found which 
bestow upon the mind all the perfection of which it is at the 
moment capable,—those truths which are to regulate the judg- 
ment which we ought to have concerning God and His wonder- 
ful works, which are to regulate the movements of our hearts 
and give us a taste, or at least a foretaste, of the supreme good 
which we desire. 

If in choosing a science one had to consider only its 
demonstrativeness without thinking of its utility, arithmetic 
would be preferable to all the sciences. The truths of numbers 
are the clearest of all, since all other relations are known clearly 
only in so far as they can be expressed by those common 
measures of all exact relations which are commensurable by 
unity. And this science is so fruitful and profound that if I 
were to spend ten thousand centuries in fathoming its depths 


I should at the end of that time still find an inexhaustible 
160 


ON METAPHYSICS 161 


store of clear and luminous ideas. Nevertheless, I do not think 
that you will find it quite to the purpose that we should turn 
in that direction, charmed by the certainty which meets us 
there on all sides. For, after all, of what avail would it be to 
us to penetrate into the most hidden mysteries of arithmetic 
and algebra? It is not enough to traverse many countries, 
to advance very far into waste lands, to discover places where 
no man has ever been; we ought to go straight into those 
prosperous countries where we can find fruit in abundance, and 
solid viands capable of nourishing us. When I compared the 
various sciences with one another according to my light, their 
various advantages whether as regards their demonstrativeness or 
utility, I found myself greatly embarrassed. Now the fear of 
falling into error made me give preference to the exact sciences 
such as arithmetic and geometry, the demonstrativeness of 
which satisfy in an admirable way our vain curiosity. Now 
the desire to know not the relations of ideas to one another 
but the relations which subsist between them and the works 
of God in the midst of which we live, attracted me to physics, 
ethics and the other sciences which frequently depend upon 
experience and phenomena uncertain enough, It is strange, 
Theodore, that the most useful sciences should be full of im- 
penetrable obscurity, and that on the other hand the path 
should be sure, easy and smooth in those sciences which are 
not so necessary. Now, please tell me what method is there 
which would enable us to estimate fairly the relation between 
the facility of some and the utility of others, so as to 
give the preference to the science which deserves it ? More- 
over, how can we be sure that those which seem the most useful 
are so in truth, and that those which appear to be merely 
certain do not possess an important use of which we are not 
aware? I confess, Theodore, that though I have thought a good 
deal about the matter, I do not yet know what decision to 
arrive at. 


I. THEODORE. You have not wasted your time, my dear 
Aristes, in your reflections upon the subject. For though you 
do not know precisely to what to apply yourself, I am already 
well assured that you will not devote yourself to a number of 
false studies on which more than half the world is seriously 
engaged. I am quite certain that if I committed a mistake 

il 


162 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


in the choice which I made as to the subject of our future 
discussions, you would be in a position to correct me. 
When men lift up their head and look in all directions, they 
do not always follow those who are in front of them. They 
follow them only when they are going whither it is necessary 
for them or whither they wish themselves to go. And when 
the leader of the group imprudently enters upon routes which 
are dangerous and which lead nowhere, the others will make 
him come back. Continue, therefore, your reflections upon 
your future steps and mine. Do not trust me too much. 
Watch carefully whether I am leading you where both of us 
ought to go. Observe, then, Aristes. There are sciences of two 
kinds. On the one hand, there are those which deal with rela- 
tions of ideas; on the other, those which deal with relations 
of things by the aid of their ideas. The former are evident 
in every way. The latter cannot be evident unless we suppose 
that things resemble the ideas which we have of them, and in 
accordance with which we reason of them. These latter sciences 
are very useful, but they are enveloped in great obscurity, 
because they presuppose facts the truth of which it is very 
difficult to know exactly. But if we could find some method 
for assuring ourselves of the correctness of our assumptions, 
we should be able to avoid error, and at the same time to dis- 
cover the truths which concern us very closely. For, once 
more, truths or relations of ideas to one another only concern 
us when they represent relations between things which have 
some connection with us. 

Thus it is evident,it seems to me, that the best use that we 
can make of our mind is to ascertain what are the things which 
have some connection with us, the difference in kind among 
these connections, their causes, their effects; all in conformity 
with clear ideas and indisputable experiences, the former of 
which assure us of the nature and properties of things, and the 
latter of their relations to and connection with ourselves. But, 
in order not to waste our energies in trifles and useless things, 
our examination should be directed towards that which can 
make us happy and perfect. Thus, in a nutshell, it seems to 
me evident that the best use which we can make of our mind 
is to endeavour to gain an understanding of the truths which 
we believe by faith and of all that goes to confirm them. For 
there is no comparison between the utility of these truths and 


ON METAPHYSICS 168 


the advantages which can accrue to us from the knowledge 
of other truths. We believe these great truths. That I 
grant. But faith does not exempt those who are capable of it 
from filling their mind with these truths and from becoming 
convinced of them in every possible way. For, on the contrary, 
faith is given to us that we should regulate in accordance 
with it the procedure of our intellect as well as the movements 
of our heart. It is given to us for the purpose of leading us 
to an understanding of those very truths which it teaches us. 
There are so many people who scandalise the faithful by an 
extreme metaphysic and insolently demand from us proofs of 
that which they ought to believe on the infallible authority 
of the Church, that, although the strength of your faith renders 
you unassailable, your charity ought to lead you to remedy the 
disorder and confusion which they cause everywhere. Do 
you approve then, Aristes, of the plan which I propose for our 
future discussions ? 

ARISsTES. Certainly I do. But I did not think that you would 
wish to abandon metaphysics. Had I thought that, I should, 
it seems to me, have solved the question as to which sciences 
should be preferred. For it is clear that no discovery can bear 
comparison with an understanding of the truths of faith. I 
thought that all that you wanted was to make something of 
a philosopher and a good metaphysician of me. 


II. THEODORE. That is quite true, and I have no desire 
to abandon metaphysics, though in the sequel I shall perhaps 
take the liberty of going a little beyond its usual limits. This 
general science has authority over all the others. It may per- 
haps obtain illustrations from them and a little detail which 
is necessary in order to render its general principles perceptible 
by the senses. For by metaphysics I do not mean _ those 
abstract arguments about some imaginary properties, the main 
use of which is to furnish to those who are fond of disputation 
subject matter for endless arguments. I understand by this 
science the general truths which can serve as principles for the 
particular sciences. 

I am convinced, Aristes, that one must be a good philosopher 
in order to gain an understanding of the truths of faith, and 
the more mastery one has over the true principles of meta- 
physics the firmer will one be in the truths of religion. I 


164 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


assume, as very likely you see, what is necessary in order to 
render this proposition acceptable. But no, I shall never 
believe that true philosophy is opposed to faith and that good 
philosophers can have different opinions from good Christians. 
For whether it be that Jesus Christ in his divinity speaks to 
philosophers in their innermost being, or whether it be that 
he instructs Christians by aid of the visible authority of the 
Church, it is not possible that he should contradict himself, 
though it is quite possible to imagine contradictions in his 
deliverances or to take what really are our own decisions for his 
deliverances. Truth speaks to us in different ways, but cer- 
tainly it always says the same thing. Philosophy, then, should 
not be opposed to religion—unless it be the false philosophy 
of the Pagans, the philosophy which is based on human 
authority, in a word, all those non-revealed opinions which do 
not bear the character of truth—that irresistible certainty 
which compels all attentive minds to submission. You can 
see from the metaphysical conclusions which we have reached 
in our preceding discussions whether true philosophy contra- 
dicts religion. For my part, I am convinced that it does not. 
For, if I had submitted to you any proposition contrary to the 
truths which Jesus Christ teaches us through the visible 
authority of the Church, those propositions, coming as they 
would be from my own resources, and not being characterised 
by irresistible certainty, would not belong at all to a true and 
sound philosophy. But I do not know why I delay to speak 
of truths which it is impossible to doubt, however small the 
amount of consideration we give to them. 

ARISTES. Permit me to tell you, Theodore, that I was charmed 
to find a wonderful connection between what you have taught 
me, or rather between what Reason has taught me through your 
mediation, and those great and necessary truths, belief in which 
the authority of the Church enjoins upon the simple and the 
ignorant, whom God desires to save just as well as the 
philosophers. You have, for example, convinced me of the 
corruption of my nature and the need of a Saviour. I know that 
all intelligent minds have but a single and unique Master, the 
divine Word, and that only Reason incarnate and rendered 
sensible can deliver carnal men from the blindness into which we 
are all born. I confess with extreme satisfaction that these 
fundamental truths of our faith, and several- others which it 


ON METAPHYSICS 165 


would take too long to relate, are necessary consequences from 
the principles which you have demonstrated to me. Pray 
continue ; I shall try to follow you whithersoever you lead 
me. 

THEODORE. Ah, my dear Aristes, be careful once again 
lest I go astray. I am afraid you are too easily convinced, and 
that your approbation will encourage some negligence on my 
part and cause me to fall into error. Pray fear for me and 
mistrust all that a man, who may be subject to illusion, is telling 
you. Moreover, you will learn nothing if your reflections do 
not put you in possession of the truths which I shall try to 
demonstrate to you. 


III. There are only three kinds of being of which we have 
any knowledge and with which we can have any connection : 
God or the infinitely perfect Being, who is the principle or 
cause of all things; minds which we know only by the 
inner feeling which we have of our own nature; bodies 
of the existence of which we are assured by the revelation 
which we have of them. For what we call a man is but a 
complex... . 

ARISTES. Gently, Theodore. I know that there is a God 
or an infinitely perfect Being.t For if I think of Him, and 
certainly I do think of Him, it follows that He exists, since 
nothing finite can represent the Infinite. I know likewise that 
minds exist, granted that there are beings who resemble myself, 
for I cannot doubt but that I think and I know that whatever 
thinks is other than extension or matter.2 You have demon- 
strated all this. But what do you mean when you say that 
we are assured of the existence of bodies by the revelation 
which we have of them? What! Do we not see them, 
do we not feel them? We have no need of a revelation to 
teach us that we have a body; when we are pricked, we feel 
it quite sufficiently. 

THEODORE. Yes, no doubt we feel it. But the feeling of 
pain which we have is a kind of revelation. This expression 
is a striking one. But it is precisely for that reason that I 
make use of it. For you always forget that it is God alone 
who produces in your soul all those different feelings which 
it experiences, on the occasion of the changes which take place 

t Dialogue II. 2 Dialogue I, 


166 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


in your body, in consequence of the general laws of the con- 
junction of the two natures of which man is constituted; laws 
which are nothing but the efficient and constant volitions of 
the Creator, as I shall explain in the sequel. The point through 
which our hand is pricked does not cause the pain through the 
hole which it makes in the body. Neither is it the soul which 
produces this uncomfortable feeling, since it suffers the pain 
despite itself. It is produced assuredly by a superior power. 
It is God Himself, who through the feelings with which He 
affects us reveals to us all that takes place outside us, I mean 
in our body and in the bodies of our environment. Remember, 
please, what I have already said so many times. 


IV. ARISTES. I was wrong, Theodore. But what you are 
telling me has suggested to my mind a very strange thought. 
I hardly dare to submit it to you, for I fear you will look upon 
me as a dreamer. I am beginning now to doubt whether there 
are any bodies. My reason is that the revelation which God 
gives us of their existence is not certain. For, after all, it is 
certain that we frequently see bodies which really do not exist, 
as for example during sleep, or when a fever causes an excite- 
ment in the brain. If God, in consequence of the general laws, 
as you call them, can sometimes give us deceptive sensations, if 
He can reveal false things to us through our senses, why should 
He not do so always, and how can we distinguish what is 
true from what is false in the obscure and confused testimony 
of our senses? It seems to me that I had better prudently 
reserve my judgment with regard to the existence of bodies. 
I will ask you kindly to give me an exact demonstration 
of it. 

THEODORE. An exact demonstration! That is a little 
too much, Aristes. It seems to me, on the contrary, that I have 
an exact demonstration of the impossibility of such a demon- 
stration. But keep up your courage, do not despair. Proofs 
are not lacking which are sufficient to dispel your doubt. 
And I am glad that such a doubt occurred to you. For, 
after all, to doubt the existence of bodies on the strength of 
reasons which show that one cannot doubt the existence of 
God or the incorporeal nature of the soul is some proof that 
one has put oneself above all prejudices, and instead of sub- 
jecting reason to the senses as most men do, one has recognised 


ON METAPHYSICS 167 


the right which it has to pronounce judgment authoritatively. 
That it is impossible to give an exact demonstration of the 
existence of bodies I can prove conclusively, unless I am much 
mistaken, thus:— 


V. The notion of the infinitely perfect Being involves no 
necessary relation to any created thing. God is perfectly self- 
sufficient. Matter is, therefore, no necessary emanation from the 
Divinity. At least—and this is sufficient for the present pur- 
pose—it is not evident that it is such a necessary emanation. 
Now, one can give no exact demonstration of a truth unless 
one can show that it is necessarily connected with its 
principle, unless one can show that there is a necessary 
relation involved in the ideas which are being compared. 
Hence it is not possible to demonstrate rigorously that bodies 
exist. 

In fact, the existence of bodies is arbitrary. If any exist, 
it is because God has willed to create them. Now, it is not the 
. same in the case of the volition to create the world as it is in 
the case of that to punish sins, reward good deeds, exact 
from all of us love and fear, and the like. These latter volitions 
of God and a thousand other similar ones are necessarily con- 
tained in the divine Reason, in that substantial Law which 
is the inviolable rule of the will of the infinitely perfect 
Being and generally of all intelligent minds. The will to create 
corporeal things, on the other hand, is not necessarily involved in 
the notion of the infinitely perfect Being, the Being that is 
perfectly self-sufficient. Far from being so, this notion seems 
to exclude such a volition from God. There is, then, no other 
way than revelation to assure us that God has willed to create 
corporeal things, admitting at the same time, what you do not 
doubt, that they are not visible in themselves, that they cannot 
act upon the mind nor represent themselves to it, and that our 
mind itself can know them only through the ideas which repre- 
sent them, and feel them only through the modifications or 
sensations of which they can be the cause only in consequence 
of the arbitrary laws of the conjunction of the soul and the 
body. 


VI. ArisTES. I quite understand, Theodore, that one cannot 
deduce demonstratively the existence of bodies from the notion 


168 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


of the infinitely perfect Being, and that He is self-sufficient. 
For the volitions of God which have reference to the world are 
not involved in the notion which we have of Him. Now, since 
there is nothing apart from these volitions which could give 
being to these created things, it is clear that no demonstration 
can be offered of the existence of bodies, for demonstrations can 
be given only of those truths which are necessarily connected 
with their principle. Thus, since one cannot assure oneself 
of the existence of bodies by means of a clear proof, there 
is no other way left than the authority of a_ revelation. 
But this way does not seem to me certain. For though 
I find clearly in the idea of the most perfect Being that 
He cannot wish to deceive us, experience teaches me that 
His revelations are deceptive: two truths which I cannot 
reconcile with one another. For, after all, we often have 
feelings which reveal false things to us. One person feels 
pain in an arm which he has no longer. All those whom we 
designate “‘mad”’ see in front of them objects which do not 
exist, and there is hardly a person who has not in his life been 
frequently disturbed and frightened by pure phantoms. God 
is no deceiver. He cannot wish to deceive anyone, whether 
fools or wise men. But, nevertheless, we are all of us deceived 
by the feelings which He causes in us, and by means of which 
He informs us of the existence of corporeal things. Itis then quite 
certain that we are often deceived. On the other hand, it seems 
no less certain that we are not always deceived. Let us see, 
then, upon what foundation you rest the certainty which you 
claim to have of the existence of corporeal things. 


VII. THEODORE. There are in general revelations of two 
kinds: on the one hand natural, and on the other supernatural. 
I mean that the former take place in consequence of some 
general laws which are known to us in accordance with which the 
author of nature acts upon our mind on the occasion of certain 
occurrences in our body, and the latter take place in accordance 
with laws which are unknown to us, or in accordance with par- 
ticular volitions added to the general laws for the purpose of 
remedying the grievous effects which they have produced owing to 
the Fall, which has put everything in disorder. Now, both the 
former and the latter revelations, the natural and the super- 
natural, are true in themselves. But the former are for us now 


ON METAPHYSICS 169 


a source of error, not because they are false in themselves but 
because we do not use them for the purpose for which they 
were given to us, and because the Fall has corrupted our 
nature and put a kind of contradiction in the relation in which 
these general laws stand to us. Certainly, the general laws of 
the conjunction of soul and body, in consequence of which, 
God reveals to us that we have a body and that we are placed 
in the midst of many others, have been very wisely established. 
Remember what we have said in our previous discussions. General 
laws are not deceptive in themselves or as they were instituted, if 
we consider their character before the Fall and in the designs of 
their author. For we ought to remember that before the Fall, 
before the blindness and confusion which the revolt of his 
body produced in his mind, man knew clearly by the light of 
reason— 

1. That God alone could act upon him, render him happy 
or unhappy by means of pleasure or pain—in a word, modify 
or affect him. 

2. He knew by experience that God affected him always 
in the same way under the same circumstances. 

3. He recognised, therefore, by experience as well as by the 
light of Reason that God’s action was and was bound to be 
uniform. 

4. Thus, he was determined to believe that there were 
entities which were the occasional causes of the general laws 
in accordance with which he felt that God acted upon him— 
for again he knew that God alone acted upon him. 

5. Whenever he wished he could stop himself from experi- 
encing the action of sensible objects. 

6. The inner feeling which he had of his own volitions and 
of the respectful and submissive action of these objects taught 
him then that they were inferior, since they were all subordinate 
to him, for at that time everything was in perfect order. 

7. Thus, consulting the clear idea conjoined with the inner 
feeling by which he was moved on the occasion of these objects, 
he saw clearly that they were only corporeal things, since this 
idea only represents corporeal things. 

8. He concluded, therefore, that the different feelings where- 
with God affected him were but revelations by the aid of which 
God taught him that he had a body and that he was surrounded 
by a multiplicity of other bodies, 


170 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


g. But knowing through his reason that God’s mode of opera- 
tion was bound to be uniform, and through experience that the 
laws of the conjunction of body and soul were always the same, 
realising that the laws were established only for the purpose 
of warning him of what he ought to do for the conservation of 
his life, he discovered easily that he ought not to judge of the 
nature of bodies by the feeling which he had of them, nor of 
their existence by those same feelings except when his brain 
was stimulated by a cause from without and not by a movement 
of the animal spirits excited from within. Thus, he was able 
to recognise when an extraneous cause produced actual traces 
in his brain, because the course of the animal spirits was in 
perfect submission to his will. Thus, unlike the mad or fevered 
or ourselves during sleep, he was not liable to take phantoms 
for realities. All this seems to me evident and to follow 
naturally from two indisputable truths: first, that man before 
the Fall had very clear ideas and that his mind was free from 
prejudice ; second, that his body and at least the main part of 
his brain were in a state of perfect submission to himself. 

So much being granted, you see quite well, Anstes, that the 
general laws, in consequence of which God gives us these feelings 
or natural revelations, which assure us of the existence of bodies 
and of their relation to us, are very wisely laid down; you see 
that these revelations are not at all deceptive in themselves. They 
could not have been better designed for the reasons which I have 
just given. How is it, then, that now they are conducive to an 
infinite number of errors? Assuredly, because our mind is 
obscured, because from our childhood we are filled with pre- 
judices, because we do not know how to use our senses for the 
purpose for which they were given to us. And all this is so, 
you must note, precisely because through our own fault we 
have lost the power which we ought to have over our brain. 
Our union with the universal Reason is extremely weakened 
through our dependence upon our body. For our mind is so 
placed between God, who enlightens us, and the body which 
blinds us, that it necessarily follows that the closer the union 
which it has with the one, the weaker will be its union with 
the other. As God follows and is bound to follow strictly the 
laws which He has established for the union of the two natures 
of which we are composed, and as we have lost the power of 
restraining the traces which the rebellious animal spirits cause in 


ON METAPHYSICS 171 


the brain, we take these phantoms for realities. But the cause 
of our error is not due exactly to the falsity of our natural 
revelations but to the imprudence and recklessness of our judg- 
ments, to our ignorance of the way in which God is bound to 
act, to the disorder, in a word, which sin has caused in all our 
faculties and to the confusion into which it has thrown our ideas, 
not by changing the laws of the conjunction of soul and body, 
but by stirring up the powers of our body and by depriving 
us through its revolt of the facility to use these laws for the 
purpose for which they were established. You will understand 
all this more clearly in our future discussions or when you 
have meditated upon the matter. Meanwhile, Aristes, despite 
all that I have just said, I do not see that there can be any 
good reason for doubting the existence of bodies in general. 
For though I may be mistaken with regard to the existence of 
a particular body, I see quite well that this is because God 
follows strictly the laws of the conjunction of soul and body ; 
I see that it is because the uniformity of His mode of operation 
cannot be broken through the irregularity of ours, and because 
the loss which we have sustained through our own fault of the 
power which we had over our body cannot be supposed to 
bring about any change in the laws of its union with our soul. 
This reason is sufficient to prevent my being mistaken with 
regard to the existence of such a body. I am inevitably led to 
believe that it exists. But this reason is wanting, and I do 
not see any possibility of finding another, that would prevent 
me from believing in general that there are bodies, despite all 
the different feelings which I have of them—feelings which 
are so consistent and well connected, so well arranged, that it 
seems to me certain that God would be deceiving us if nothing 
of what we see really existed. 


VIII. But, in order to deliver us entirely from our specu- 
lative doubt, Faith furnishes us with a proof which it is impossible 
to resist. For whether bodies exist or not, it is certain 
that we see them, and that God alone can give us the sensations 
which we have of them. It is, therefore, God who is presenting 
to my mind the appearances of the men with whom I live, of 
the books which I study, of the preachers that I hear. Now, I 
read in the appearance of the New Testament about the miracles 
of a Man-God, His resurrection, His ascension to Heaven, the 


172 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


preaching of the Apostles, its beneficial success, the establish- 
ment of the Church. I compare all this with what I know 
from history, with the laws of the Jews, with the prophecies 
of the Old Testament. These are still but appearances. But 
now I am certain that it is God alone who gives them to me, 
and that He is no deceiver. Again, therefore, I compare all 
the appearances which I have just enumerated with the idea 
of God, the beauty of religion, the sanctity of morality, the 
necessity of a creed, and finally I am induced to believe in what 
our faith teaches us. In a word, I believe in it without insisting 
upon a rigorously demonstrative proof. For nothing seems to 
me more unreasonable than infidelity, nothing more imprudent 
than not to yield to the greatest authority one can have in 
matters which we cannot examine with geometrical precision, 
whether because time is wanting or because of a thousand other 
reasons. Men have need of an authority to teach them 
necessary truths—truths which are to lead them to their true 
end, and to reject the authority of the Church would be to defy 
Providence. This seems to me evident, and I shall prove it 
in the sequel. Now, our faith teaches me that God has 
created the heavens and the earth. It teaches me that Scripture 
is a divine book, and this book, or the appearance of this book, 
tells me clearly and positively that there are thousands upon 
thousands of created things. Thus, then, are all my appearances 
changed into realities. Bodies exist, this is rigorously demon- 
strated, faith being granted. Thus, I am assured that bodies exist 
not only by the natural revelations of the sensations which God 
gives me of them, but still more by the supernatural revelation 
of faith. These then, my dear Aristes, are some great argu- 
ments against a doubt which hardly occurs to the mind in a 
natural way. There are few people sufficiently philosophical 
to suggest it. And though one can raise difficulties in regard to 
the existence of bodies, which appear to be insurmountable, 
especially to those who do not know that God is bound to act 
upon us in accordance with general laws, I do not believe that 
anybody could ever seriously doubt their existence. It was 
not, therefore, very necessary for us to stop at this point in 
order to dispel a doubt which is fraught with so little danger. 
For I am quite certain that you yourself have no need of all 
that I have just told you in order to be assured that you are 
at present with Theodore. 


ON METAPHYSICS 178 


ARISTES. I am not so very sure of this. I am certain that 
you are here. But that is because you are telling me things 
which no other man would tell me, and which I should never 
say to myself. For the rest, the love which I have for Theodore 
is such that I seek him everywhere. How do I know whether 
if this love grows stronger, though that seems hardly possible, 
I shall always be able to distinguish between the true and false 
Theodore ? 

THEODORE. You are not wise, my dear Aristes. Will you 
never abandon this habit of flattery? It is unworthy of a 
philosopher. 

ARISTES. You are severe indeed! I did not anticipate this 
reply. 

THEODORE. Nor I yours. I thought you were following 
my argument. But your reply gives me ground for fearing 
that you have not spoken to me of your doubt to no purpose. 
Most men raise difficulties without reflection, and instead of 
attending seriously to the replies which are made to them, they 
are thinking of some repartee which should excite admiration 
for the subtlety of their imagination. So far from mutually 
instructing one another, they think only of flattering one 
another. They corrupt one another by the secret encourage- 
ment of the most criminal of passions; and, instead of suppress- 
ing all those feelings which the thirst for pride excites in them, 
instead of communicating to one another the true goods which 
reason imparts to them, they pay homage to one another which 
intoxicates and confuses them. 

ARISTES. Ah, Theodore, how acutely I feel what you are 
saying! But can you read my heart ? 

THEODORE. No, Aristes. It is in my own heart that I 
read what I am saying. It isin my own heart that I find this 
mass of desires and vanity which makes me speak ill of the 
human race. I only know of what takes place in your heart 
by reference to what I feel in my own. I fear for you what I 
am apprehensive of for myself. But I am not sufficiently rash 
to judge of your actual dispositions. My manners surprise you. 
They are harsh and awkward and boorish, if you like. But 
what! Do you think that any sincere friendship based on 
reason will take refuge in evasion and pretence ? You do not 
know the privileges of the ‘‘ meditators.”” They have the 
right to point out to their friends, without any ceremony, what- 


174 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


ever they find to be objectionable in their conduct. I should 
very much have liked, my dear Aristes, to have discerned in 
your reply a little more simplicity and much more attention ; 
I should have wished that in you reason would always have had 
the upper hand, and that imagination would be suppressed. But 
if it is at present too tired of its silence, let us leave meta- 
physics. We can resume it another time. Do you know that 
the ‘‘meditator’’ of whom I have spoken to you a few days 
ago wishes to come here ? 

ARISTES. Who? Theotimus! 

THEODORE. Quite so. Theotimus himself. 

ARISTES. How good of him! What a joy! What an 
honour ! 

THEODORE. He has learnt, I do not know how, that I am 
here, and that we are philosophising together. For if Aristes is 
anywhere, the fact is soonknown. That is so because everybody 
is desirous of having him. That is what comes from being 
a wit, and from having so many brilliant qualities. One is 
bound to be everywhere in order to disappoint no one. One 
no longer belongs to oneself. 

ARISTES. What servitude ! 

THEODORE. Do you wish to free yourself from it? Become 
a thinker, and everyone will soon desert you. The great secret 
for freeing oneself from the importunity of many people is 
to talk rationally to them. This language which they do not 
understand gets rid of them for ever without their having 
cause for complaint. 

ARISTES. That is true. But, with regard to Theotimus, 
when shall we have him here ? | 


IX. THEODORE. Whenever you like. 

ARISTES. Well, I want you kindly to remind him con- 
tinually that we are expecting him, and above all to assure 
him that I am no longer what I used to be. But, pray, 
let him not interrupt the sequence of our discussion. I give 
up my doubt, Theodore. Yet I do not regret having sub- 
mitted it to you. For by aid of the things you have told me 
I can see the solution of a number of apparent contradictions 
which I have been unable to harmonise with our notion of the 
Divine. When we are asleep God causes us to see a thousand 
objects which are not there. For He follows and is bound to 


ON METAPHYSICS 175 


follow the general laws of the conjunction of body and 
soul. It is not because He wills to deceive us. If He 
acted upon us according to particular volitions we should 
not see all these phantoms in our sleep. I am no longer sur- 
prised at seeing monsters and all the irregularity of nature. I 
see the cause of these in the simplicity of the ways of God. To 
see innocence oppressed no longer surprises me; if the stronger 
win the day usually it is because God rules the world according 
to general laws and because He postpones to another time 
the punishment of crimes. He is just, notwithstanding the 
joyous success of infidels, notwithstanding the prosperity of 
the armies of the most unjust conquerors. He is wise, though 
the universe be full of productions wherein a thousand defects 
can be found. He is unchangeable, though He seems to con- 
tradict himself at every moment, though by means of hail He 
ravages the earth which He had covered with fruit by an 
abundance of rain. All these changes which contradict one 
another do not indicate any contradiction or change in the 
cause which produces them. On the contrary, God is steadily 
following the same laws, and His mode of operation has no 
relation to ours. If someone feels pain in an arm which he 
no longer has, it is not because God has planned to deceive 
him, it is solely because God does not change His designs but 
follows His own laws strictly. It is because He approves of 
them and will never condemn them; it is because nothing can 
break the uniformity of His ways, nothing can oblige Him 
to depart from what He has done. It seems to me, Theodore, 
I can discern that the principle of general laws has an infinite 
number of consequences of very great importance. 

THEODORE. That is good, my dear Aristes; you rejoice my 
heart. I did not think you were sufficiently attentive to grasp 
the principles upon which the replies which I made to 
you depend. It is well. But it will be necessary to 
examine these principles thoroughly in order that you should 
realise more clearly their soundness and their wonderful fruit- 
fulness. For do not imagine that it will be sufficient for you 
to get a glimpse of them, or even to have comprehended them, in 
order to be in the position to apply them to all the difficulties 
which depend upon them. It is necessary to master them by 
practice and to acquire the faculty of bringing them into rela- 
tion with all matters upon which they can throw light. But 


176 SIXTH DIALOGUE 


I propose to postpone the examination of these principles until 
the arrival of Theotimus. Meanwhile, try to discover by 
yourself what are the things with which we have some con- 
nection, what are the causes of these connections and what 
their effects. For it is well that your mind should be prepared 
for what is to be the subject of our discussion, in order that 
you should be able the more easily to reprove me if I go astray, 
or to follow me if I lead you straight to the goal to which all 
our energies ought to be directed. 


SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


The inefficacy of natural causes or the impotence of created things—We 
are united immediately and direct to God alone. 


A PROFUSE exchange of compliments took place between Aristes 
and Theotimus, and the former, noticing that Theodore was 
getting rather tired of that sort of conversation, and wishing 
to let the newcomer have the honours of the battle of wits, 
said no more, and Theodore, opening the discussion, thought it 
his duty to say to Theotimus in favour of Aristes :-— 


THEODORE. In truth, Theotimus, I did not think you were 
such a gallant gentleman. You have obliged Aristes to yield, 
he who never yields to anyone. That is a victory which would 
be a great honour if you had gained it at Philander’s. But in 
all probability it would have cost you dearer. For, make no 
mistake, you have won because at home Aristes wishes to do the 
honours. He yields here out of courtesy and out of a sort of duty. 

THEOTIMUS. I have no doubt about it, Theodore. I see 
quite well that he wishes to spare me. 

ARISTES. Press me no further, I entreat you; or at least, 
Theodore, leave me free to defend myself. 

THEODORE. No, Aristes. All this is but idle talk. We shall 
say no more, either of us. Let us speak of something more 
important. Tell me, pray, anything that may have occurred 
to you on the subject which I suggested in our last discussion. 
What are the things with which we have some relation ? 
What are the causes of these relations, and what their 
effects? For we prefer to hear you philosophise rather than 
to see ourselves overwhelmed with a profusion of kindness 
and courtesies. 

ARISTES. Do you think, Theodore, that I have been awake 
all night in order to regale Theotimus with some studied speech ? 
THEODORE. Let us leave all that and speak naturally. 

12 177 


178 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


I. Artistes. It seems to me, Theodore, that there is nothing 
to which I am more intimately united than my own body. For 
it cannot be touched without disturbing me. As soon as it is 
wounded I feel that I am injured, that I am hurt. There is 
nothing more insignificant than the proboscis of those importunate 
gnats that attack us on our evening walk ; and, nevertheless, how- 
ever slightly they bury the imperceptible point of their venomous 
proboscis into my skin, my soul feels pain. The mere noise 
which they make in my ears alarms me—a sure indication that 
I am more closely united to my body than to anything else. 
Yes, Theodore, this is so true that it is really only through 
our body that we are united to the objects of our environ- 
ment. If the sun did not disturb my eyes it would be invisible 
so far as I am concerned, and if, unfortunately for myself, I 
were to become deaf, I should no longer find so much delight 
in the intercourse I have with my friends. In fact, it is through 
my body that I hold to my religion. It is through my ears 
and my eyes that faith has entered into my mind and heart. 
Thus it is through my body that I have everything. I am 
therefore united to my body more intimately than to any other 
thing. | 
THEODORE. Have you meditated long, my dear Aristes, in 
order to make this great discovery ? 

TuHEoTIMUsS. All that may quite well be maintained, Theodore. 

THEODORE. Yes, Theotimus, by people who consult only 
their senses. Whom are you taking Aristes for if you approve 
in his mouth that which any peasant might utter? I do not 
recognise Aristes in this reply. 

ARISTES. I see that I have made a very bad beginning. 

THEODORE. Very bad indeed. I did not expect this sort 
of beginning. For I did not believe that you would forget to-day 
what you knew yesterday. But prejudices will always return 
to the attack and deprive us of our conquests, if we do not know 
how to maintain our position by our vigilance and good 
intrenchments. Oh well! I submit to you that we are not 
united to our body at all, much less are we more intimately 
united to it than to anything else. I am using somewhat 
extreme expressions so that they shall leave a vivid impression ~ 
and that you may not forget what I am saying. No, Aristes, 
to speak accurately and in all strictness, your mind is not and 
cannot be united to your body, for it can be united only to that 


ON METAPHYSICS 179 


which can act upon it. How do you think that your body can 
act upon your mind? Do you think it is through your body that 
you are rational, happy or unhappy, and so on? Is it your body 
which unites you to God, to the Reason which enlightens you, 
or is it God who unites you to your body and through your 
body to everything in your environment ? 

ARISTES. Of course, Theodore, it is God who has joined my 
body to my mind. But can we notsay... 

THEODORE. What? That it is your mind which now acts 
upon your body and your body upon your mind? I understand 
you. God has instituted this union of mind and body. But asa 
result your body, and through it all objects, are capable of 
acting upon the mind. That union once established, your 
mind can act upon your body, and through it upon all 
things in your environment. Can we not put the matter 
thus ? 

ARISTES. There is something here that I do not quite 
understand. How is all this accomplished? I speak to you 
now as though I had forgotten the best part of what you have 
told me through neglecting to meditate upon it. 

THEODORE. I have my doubts about that. You want me 
to prove to you more exactly and with greater detail the 
principles concerning which I have spoken hitherto. I must 
try to satisfy you. But I ask you to give me your attention, 
and you, Theotimus, to watch us both. 


II. Do you think, Aristes, that matter, which, I take it, you 
do not believe to be capable of moving itself or of modifying 
itself, can ever modify a mind, make it happy or unhappy, 
represent ideas to it, or give to it various feelings? Think 
this over and answer me. 

ARISTES. That does not seem to me possible. 

THEODORE. Once again, think it over. Consult the idea 
of extension, and judge by means of the idea which represents 
all bodies or else nothing represents them whether they can 
have any other property but the passive faculty of receiving 
various figures and various movements. Is it not absolutely 
evident that the properties of extension can consist in nothing 
but relations of distance ? 

ARISTES. That is clear, and I have already granted you all 


that. 


180 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


THEODORE. Hence it is not possible that bodies should act 
on minds. 

ARISTES. Not in themselves or by means of their own force, 
one might reply. But why should they not be able to do so 
by means of a power which is the result of their union with 
minds ? 

THEODORE. Why do you say by means of a power which 
is the result of their union? These general terms convey 
nothing to my mind. Remember, Aristes, the principle of clear 
ideas. If you abandon it, you will at once be enveloped in 
obscurity. At the first step you will fall over the precipice. 
I can understand quite well that bodies, in consequence of 
certain natural laws, can act upon our mind in the sense that 
their modifications determine the activity of the divine volitions 
or of the general laws of the conjunction of body and soul, 
all of which I will explain to you soon. But that bodies 
should in themselves be capable of receiving a certain power 
by the efficacy of which they can act upon the mind I cannot 
understand. For what would this power be? Would it be a 
substance or a mode? If a substance, then the bodies do not 
act, but only this substance in bodies. If this power is a mode, 
then there is a mode in bodies which will be neither movement 
nor figure. Extension, therefore, will have modes other than 
relations of distance. But really, why should I dwell on this 
point ? It is for you, Aristes, to give me some idea of the power 
which you conceive to be the effect of the conjunction of body 
and soul. 

ARISTES. We do not know, one might reply, what this power 
is. But what can you infer from this confession of our ignor- 
ance ? 

THEODORE. That it is better to say nothing than not to 
know what one is saying. 

ARISTES. Agreed. But one is saying only what one knows 
when one maintains that bodies act on minds, for nothing is 
more certain. Experience does not permit us to doubt that. 

THEODORE. I doubt it very much, nevertheless, or rather 
I do not believe it at all. Experience teaches me that I feel 
pain, for example, when a pin pricks me. That is certain. 
But here let us stop, for experience does not teach us that 
a pin can act on our mind nor that it has any power. Let 
us believe none of this, I advise you. 


ON METAPHYSICS 181 


III. Artistes. I do not believe, Theodore, that a pin can act 
upon my mind. Butit might be said perhaps that it can act upon 
my body and through my body upon my mind in consequence 
of their conjunction, for I admit that matter cannot act imme- 
diately on a mind. Note the word, tmmedtately. 

THEODORE. But your body, is it not matter ? 

ARISTES. Yes, certainly. 

THEODORE. Your body, then, cannot act tmmedtately upon 
your mind. Thus, if your finger be pricked by a pin, 
though your brain be disturbed by its action, neither the one 
nor the other can act upon your soul or cause it to feel pain ; 
for neither the one nor the other can act immediately upon 
the mind, since your brain and your finger are nothing but 
matter. 

ARISTES. ‘Neither is it my soul which produces in itself this 
feeling of pain which afflicts it, for it suffers pain despite itself ; 
I am obviously aware that the pain comes from some external 
cause. Thus your reasoning proves too much. I see quite well 
that you are going to say that it is God who causes my pain in 
me, and I agree; but He causes it only in consequence of the 
general laws of the conjunction of body and soul. 

THEODORE. What do you mean, Aristes? All that is true. 
Explain your meaning more distinctly. 

ARISTES. I believe, Theodore, that God has united my mind 
to my body so that in consequence of this union my mind and 
my body can act reciprocally upon one another, in virtue of 
the natural laws which God always follows very closely. That 
is all I have to say. 

THEODORE. You do not explain yourself, Aristes. It is 
a sufficiently good indication that you do not understand. 
Union, general laws—what kind of reality do you understand 
by these terms ? 

THEOTIMUS. Apparently, Aristes believes that these terms 
are clear and without ambiguity because custom has made them 
very common, for when one often repeats an obscure or false 
thing without having even examined it one finds it difficult to 
believe that it is not true. This word ‘‘ union ’”’ is one of the 
most ambiguous of words. But it is so common and con- 
venient that it passes everywhere without hindrance on the 
part of anyone, without anyone examining whether it calls up 
within the mind any distinct idea; for nothing that is familiar 


182 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


receives that attention without which it is impossible to under- 
stand; and all that affects the imagination pleasantly seems 
very clear to the mind which mistrusts nothing when it is 
paid in cash. , 

ARISTES. What, Theotimus, are you quite of the same opinion 
as Theodore ? Can one be in doubt as to whether the soul 
and the body are united in the closest way conceivable? I 
would willingly believe that you have conspired to confuse my 
mind and to amuse yourself at my expense if I were not con- 
vinced that you are too good to have so uncharitable a design. 

THEOTIMUS. You area little too prejudiced, Aristes. Theodore 
maintains part of the truth, and if he exaggerates a little, it is 
in order toset usright. He sees that the weight of our prejudices 
drags us down, and his violence is meant only to hold us back. 
Let us listen to him, I beg of you. 


IV. THEODORE. You maintain, Aristes, that your soul is 
joined to your body more closely than to any other thing. Well, 
for the moment I agree; but I do so on condition that you on 
your part will undertake for a day or two not to account for 
certain effects by means of principles which neither you nor I 
understand. Is not that quite reasonable ? 

ARISTES. Only too reasonable. But what do you mean? 

THEODORE. This. There is the closest union in the world 
between your mind and your body. Eh! How can we doubt 
it? But you cannot say what precisely this union is. Let us 
not use it, therefore, as a principle for explaining the effects 
of the causes for which we are in search. 

ARISTES. But what ifthese effects depend uponit necessarily ? 

THEODORE. If they depend upon it we shall be obliged to 
come back to it. But let us not assume this. If I asked you, 
Aristes, how it is that when I merely draw the arm of this chair 
all the remaining parts follow, would you believe that you had 
sufficiently explained the effect to me by replying that this 
is due to the union between the arm of this chair and the 
other parts which compose it? Assuredly, Theotimus would 
not be satisfied with such a reply. Children may be permitted 
to answer thus, but not philosophers, unless on occasions when 
they are not philosophising. In order to satisfy Theotimus on 
this question, it would be necessary to get back to the physical 
cause of that union of the parts which constitute hard bodies, 


ON METAPHYSICS 183 


and to demonstrate to him that the hardness of bodies can 
come only from the compression of an invisible matter which 
surrounds them.! This word “ union,’’ then, explains nothing. 
It is itself in need of explanation. Thus, Aristes, you may like 
to take vague and general words for reasons. But do not think 
you can pay us in this coin, for though many people accept it 
and are satisfied with it, we are not so easily dealt with, owing 
to the fear which we have of being deceived. 

ARISTES. What do you want me to do? Iam paying you 
in a coin which I have accepted as good. I have no better. 
And since it has currency in the world, you might be satisfied 
with it. But let us just see in what way you yourself pay 
people. Prove to me by good arguments that bodies and minds 
mutually act onone another without having recourse to their union. 

THEODORE. Let us not assume, Aristes, that they mutually 
act upon one another, but only that their modifications are 
reciprocal. Assume precisely nothing but what experience 
teaches you, and try to be attentive to what I am going to say. 
Do you think that one body can act upon another and set it 
in motion ? 

ARISTES. Who can deny it? 


V. THEODORE. Theotimus and I, and soon perhaps Aristes, 
for there is a contradiction—a contradiction I say—in maintain- 
ing that bodies can act upon bodies. I will prove this paradox 
to you, which seems so contrary to experience, so opposed to 
philosophical tradition, so incredible to the learned and ignorant 
alike. Tell me: can a body move itself? Pray consult the 
idea which you have of bodies, for always remember that one 
must judge of things by the ideas which represent them, and 
not by the sensations which we have of them.? 

ARISTES. No, I do not see that bodies can set themselves 
in motion by themselves. But neither do I see that they 
cannot do so. I am in doubt about it. : 

THEODORE. You do well to doubt and to stop short where 
you do not see clearly. But try to see clearly and to dispel 
your doubt. Courage! Let us advance. 

ARISTES. I am afraid of taking a false step for lack of light. 
Enlighten me a little. 


t Recherche, Bk. II, last chapter. 
4 Dialogues III, IV, V. 


184 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


THEODORE. Consult clear ideas attentively, my dear Aristes. 
It is they that bring to attentive minds the light of which you 
are in need. Contemplate the archetype of bodies, intelligible 
extension. It is that which represents them, since it is in 
accordance with it that they have been formed. This idea is 
all-luminous. Consult it then. Do you not see clearly that 
bodies can be moved, but that they cannot move themselves ? 
You hesitate. Well, let us suppose that this chair can of itself 
set itself in motion, in which direction will it go and with 
what degree of velocity when it is inclined to set itself 
in motion? Give it, then, some intelligence and a will capable 
of determining it. In a word, make a man of your chair. 
Otherwise this power of movement will be quite useless to it. 

ARISTES. A man of my chair! What a strange thought ! 

THEOTIMUS. Only too common and true, as Theodore sees. 
Forallthose who judge of things by themselves or by the sensations 
which they have of them, and not by the ideas which represent 
them, make of all objects something that resembles themselves. 
They make God act like a man. They attribute to beasts 
what they feel in themselves. They give to fire and the other 
elements inclinations of which they have no other idea than 
the feeling which they have of them. Thus they humanise 
all things. But do not delay over this. Follow Theodore 
and answer him. 

ARISTES. I quite believe that this chair cannot move itself. 
But how do I know that there is no other body to which God 
has given the power of moving itself? Remember, Theodore, 
that you have to prove it to be a contradiction that bodies 
can act upon one another. 


VI. THEODORE. Well, Aristes, I shall prove it to you. It 
is a contradiction that a body should be neither at rest nor in 
movement ; for God Himself, though all-powerful, cannot create 
a body which should be nowhere and which should not stand 
to any other body in some special relation. Every body is at 
rest when it preserves the same relation of distance to other 
bodies ; it is in motion when this relation keeps on changing 
incessantly. Now, it is evident that every body either changes 
or does not change its relation of distance. There is no middle 
course between these alternatives, for these two propositions, 
it changes, it does not change, are contradictory. It is, 


ON METAPHYSICS 185 


therefore, a contradiction that a body should be neither at rest 
nor in motion. 

ARISTES, This was in need of no proof. 

THEODORE. Now, it is the will of God which gives existence 
to bodies and to all created things, the existence of which, 
certainly, is not necessary. As this will which has created them 
abides for ever, they too abide, and should this will cease to 
be—I speak of God according to our way of conceiving—it follows 
necessarily that bodies would cease to be. It is, therefore, 
this very will which keeps bodies at rest or puts them in motion, 
since it is this will which gives them being, and since they 
could not exist if they were not either at rest or in motion. 
For, observe, God cannot accomplish the impossible or whatever 
involves a manifest contradiction; He cannot will that which 
cannot be conceived. He cannot will that this chair should 
be, without willing at the same time that it should be either 
here or there, and without His will putting it here or there, since 
you cannot conceive of the chair as existing unless it exists 
somewhere, here or elsewhere. 

ARISTES, It seems to me, nevertheless, that I can think of 
a body without conceiving of it as either at rest or in motion. 

THEODORE. That is not what I am saying. You can think 
of a body in general and make whatever abstractions you like, 
I agree. It is this which always misleads you. But, once 
more, I say that you cannot conceive of a body as existing 
unless you conceive of it as existing somewhere, and as changing 
or not changing the relation in which it stands to other bodies, 
and consequently as being either at rest or in motion. Hence 
there is a contradiction involved in saying that God makes a 
body without His making it either at rest or in motion. 

ARISTES. Oh well, Theodore, I admit that. When God 
creates a body it follows at once that He makes it either at rest 
or in motion. But the moment of creation once passed, that 
is no longer so. Bodies then arrange themselves according to 
chance, or according to the law of the strongest, 


VII. THEODORE. The moment of creation once passed! 
But if that moment never passes away, you are driven into a 
corner, you will have to yield. Observe then. God wills that 
a world shall come to be. His will being omnipotent, that world 
is at once an accomplished fact. Let God will no more that 


186 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


there should be a world, and the world will be annihilated, for 
assuredly the world depends upon the will of the Creator. If, 
then, the world subsists, it is because God continues to will that 
there should be a world The conservation of created beings 
is, therefore, so far as God is concerned, their continuous creation, 
I say so far as God is concerned, for so far as the created beings 
are concerned there is a difference, since in and through the 
act of creation they pass from non-being to being, whereas 
through the act of conservation they continue to be. But in 
truth the act of creation never ceases, since in God conservation 
and creation are but one and the same volition, and in con- 
sequence are necessarily followed by the same effects. 

ARISTES. I understand your reasons, Theodore, but I am 
not convinced, for the proposition, ‘‘let God will no more 
that there should be a world and it will be annihilated,’ 
seems to me false. It seems to me that it is not enough for 
the annihilation of the world that God should will no more 
that the world should be. It is necessary that He should will 
positively that it should be no more. For doing nothing, 
no volition is necessary. Thus, now that the world is an 
accomplished fact, let God but leave it there, it will remain 
for ever. 


VIII. THEODORE. You are not thinking about the matter, 
Aristes. You are making created things independent. You judge 
of God and His works by the works of man, which presuppose 
nature and do not make it. Your house continues to exist, 
though its architect be dead. That is because its foundations 
are solid and because it has no connection with the life of him 
who built it. It does not depend upon the latter in any way. 
The ground of our being, on the other hand, depends essentially 
upon the Creator. And though the arrangement of some stones 
depends in some sense upon the will of men in consequence of 
the action of natural causes, the accomplished work is not 
thus dependent. The universe, on the other hand, having 
been created out of nothing, depends so much upon the uni- 
versal Cause that it would relapse into non-being necessarily 
if God ceased to conserve it. For God does not will, and 
indeed cannot make, a created thing which is independent of 
His volitions. 

ARISTES. JI admit, Theodore, that there is an essential rela- 


ON METAPHYSICS 187 


tion, connection, or dependence between created things and the 
Creator. But cannot one say that to retain for the created 
things their dependent nature it is enough that God should be 
able to annihilate them whenever He pleases ? 

THEODORE. No, emphatically no, my dear Aristes. What 
greater mark of independence is there than unaided self-sub- 
sistence ? To speak accurately, your house does not depend 
upon you. Why? Because it subsists without you. You can 
put it to the flames whenever it pleases you, but you do not 
sustain it. That is why there is no essential relation of depen- 
dence between you and it. Thus, though God could destroy 
all created things whenever it pleased Him, so long as they could 
subsist without the continual influence of the Creator, they 
would not be essentially dependent upon Him. To become 
entirely convinced of the truth of what I am saying, suppose 
for a moment that God does not exist. The universe, according 
to your view, would not cease to exist, for a cause which has 
no influence is no more necessary for the production of an effect 
than a cause which does not exist. That is evident. Now, 
on this supposition you could not conceive the world as 
essentially dependent upon the Creator, since the Creator is now 
conceived as no longer existing. It is true that this supposition 
is impossible. But the mind can separate or join things as it 
pleases in order to ascertain the relation between them. Hence, 
if bodies are essentially dependent upon the Creator, they need, 
in order to exist, to be sustained by His continuous influence, 
by the efficacy of the same will which has created them. If 
God merely ceases to will their being, it follows necessarily and 
clearly from this alone that they would be no longer, for if they 
continued to be, though God continued no more to will that 
they should be, they would be independent, and indeed so 
independent that God could no longer destroy them. This I 
am going to prove to you. 


IX. A God who is infinitely wise cannot will anything which 
is, so to speak, unworthy of being willed; He cannot love any- 
thing which is not lovable. Now, non-being has nothing which 
is lovable. Non-being cannot, therefore, be the object of the 
divine will. Assuredly non-being has not enough reality, seeing 
that it has none at all, to stand in any relation with God’s 
activity—an activity of infinite worth. It follows that God 


188 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


cannot will in a positive manner the annihilation of the world. 
Created beings alone can, either through lack of power or through 
error, take non-being as the object of their volition. That is 
because a given object can hinder the fulfilment of their desire, 
or because they imagine it can do so. But if you think it 
over, you will see that nothing is more obvious than that a 
God who is infinitely wise and omnipotent cannot, without 
belying His own nature, display His own power in doing nothing, 
nay, in destroying His own work. It is impossible, I say, for God 
to exert His power not in remedying a disorder which He has not 
given rise to, but in annihilating the beings which He has made. 
Thus, Aristes, on the supposition that for the annihilation of 
the world it is not enough that God should cease to will its 
being, on the supposition that it is needful in addition that 
God should will positively that it should be no more, I maintain 
that the world is necessary and independent, since God could 
not destroy it without renouncing His own attributes, and since 
there is a contradiction in saying that He could renounce them. 

Do not lessen, therefore, the dependent character of created 
things, lest you should incur the impiety of ruining it altogether. 
God can annihilate them whenever He pleases, as you say. 
Yet that is so because He can cease to will that which He has 
been free to will. As He is fully self-sufficient, He loves irre- 
sistibly His own substance alone. The will to create the world, 
though eternal and immutable, just as all immanent operations 
are, involves nothing that is necessary. Since God was able to 
form the decree for the creation of the world, He is always able 
to cease to will that the world should be; not because the act 
of His decree has the power to be or not to be, but because 
this immutable and eternal act is perfectly free, and because 
it involves the eternal duration of created beings only on the 
supposition that what God has willed from all eternity He will 
continue to will unto all eternity ; or, to speak more accurately, 
God wills without ceasing, but without variety, succession or 
necessity, all that He is about to give rise to in the course of time. 
The act of His eternal decree, though simple and immutable, 
is necessary only because He is. It is incapable of not being 
only because He is; but it is, only because God wills its being. 
For just as a man, while he is moving his arm, is free not to 
move it, though on the supposition that it is being moved it is 
contradictory to say that it is not being moved, so, since God 


ON METAPHYSICS 189 


wills always and without succession whatever He wills, His 
decrees, though immutable, do not on that account cease to 
be free, for they are necessary only by reason of the pre-supposi- 
tion—only, that is to say, because God is immutable in His 
designs. But I am afraid I am digressing; let us return to 
our subject. Are you convinced now that created things are 
essentially dependent upon the Creator, so dependent that they 
cannot subsist without His influence, that they can continue 
to be only because He continues to will that they should be? 

ARISTES. I have done all in my power to resist your argu- 
ments, but I yield. I have nothing to reply. The dependence 
of created things is quite different in character from what I 
thought. 


X. THEODORE. Let us then resume what we have just been 
saying, and draw our conclusions from it. But take care that I 
do not draw any inferences which are not clearly involved in 
the principle. 

The act of « creation never ceases, the conservation of created 

things being on the part of God merely a continuous creation, 
merely an act of volition which persists and operates without _ 
ceasing. ‘Now, God cannot conceive and hence cannot will that 
a body should be ‘nowhere, or that it should stand to other bodies 
in no relation of ‘distance. | 1 God cannot will that this chair 
should exist and by this act of will create and preserve it, unless 
He ‘places it here or there or elsewhere.’ Hence, there is a con- 
tradiction in saying that one body can move another. I go 
further. There is a contradiction in saying that you can 
move your chair, if Nay, more, there is a contradiction in_main- 
taining that all the angels and demons together can move 
a bit of straw. .The proof.of this.is.clear. No power, however 
vast it may be imagined to be, can surpass or. even equal the 
power of God. _Now, there is a contradiction in saying that 
God could will that this chair should be, unless He at the same 
time wills that it should be somewhere and unless. He places 
it there by the efficacy of His will, unless He keeps it there, 
creates it there. It follows that no power can transport it 
whither God does not transport it, nor fix or keep it where God 
does not fix or keep it, if it is God alone who adapts the efficacy 
of His actions to the ineffective.actions.of.His creations.’ This 
it is necessary to explain to you in order to harmonise reason 


190 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


with experience and in order to make you understand the 
greatest, most fruitful and necessary of all principles, namely, that 
God communicates His power to created beings only because He 
has made their modifications the occasional causes of the effects 
which He produces in Himself—occasional causes, I say, which 
determine the activity of His volitions in consequence of the 
general laws which He has prescribed to Himself, in order to make 
His mode of operation bear the character of His attributes and to 
display in His work that uniformity of action which is necessary 
in order to link together the parts which compose it and to save 
it from the irregularity and confusion of a kind of chaos wherein 
minds could never understand anything. I am saying this, my 
dear Aristes, in order to give you enthusiasm and to arouse your 
attention, for, as what I have said about the movement and rest 
of matter may seem to you of little importance, you might 
perhaps suppose that principles so insignificant and simple 
could never lead you to the great and important truths which 
you have already half seen, and upon which is based almost 
all that I have said hitherto. 

ARISTES. Do not fear, Theodore, that I shall lose sight of 
you. I am following you, it seems to me, quite closely, and 
you delight me in such a way that I feel carried away. Courage, 
then! I shall know how to stop you if you pass too lightly 
over certain positions which are too difficult or too dangerous 
for me 


XI. THEODORE. Let us suppose, then, Aristes, that God wills 
that there shall be a certain body upon this floor, say a ball; 
forthwith this is accomplished. Nothing is more movable 
than a sphere upon a plane, but all the powers imaginable could 
not disturb it so long as God does not intervene; for, once again, 
so long as God wills to create or keep this ball at the point A, 
or at any other point you please, and of necessity He must place 
it somewhere, no force could make it leave that point. Do not 
forget this; it is the basal principle. 

ARISTES. I hold it in mind, this principle. The Creator 
alone can be the mover, only He who gives being to bodies can 
put them in the places which they occupy. 

THEODORE. Very well. The moving force of a body is, 
therefore, nothing but the activity of God’s will which conserves 
it successively in different places. This being granted, let us 


ON METAPHYSICS 191 


suppose that this ball is set in motion, and that in the line of 
its motion it meets with another ball at rest. Experience 
teaches us that this other ball will move without fail, and 
according to a certain velocity always exactly observed. 
Now, it is not the first ball which sets the second in motion. This 
is clear from our principle, for a body cannot move another 
without communicating to it its moving force. But the moving 
force of a body in motion is nothing but the will of the Creator 
who keeps it successively in different places. It is not a quality 
which belongs to the body itself. Nothing belongs to it but its 
own modifications; and modifications are inseparable from 
substances. Hence bodies cannot move one another, and 
their encounter or shock is merely an occasional cause for the 
distribution of their movement. For being impenetrable, it is 
a kind of necessity that God, who I suppose acts always with 
the same efficacy or the same quantity of moving force, should, 
so to speak, distribute the force in proportion to the size of each 
of the bodies which come into contact, which at the moment 
of the shock may be looked upon as being no more than one, 
in order that they should move together toward the same spot, 
provided that their movements are not contrary and that they 
are in the same line; for, if they were directly contrary, it would 
be necessary to make a reciprocal permutation ; and, if they were 
only partially contrary, the permutation would be in propor- 
tion Let not the rebounding of bodies and the increase of their 
motion—an effect known by experience—deceive you. All 
this is due to their elasticity, which depends upon so many 
causes that to deal with them here would be to abandon the 
road which we are to follow. God always moves or tends to 
move bodies in a straight line, because this line is the simplest 
and the shortest. When bodies meet, He changes the direction 
of their movement as little as possible, and I believe that He 
never changes the quantity of the moving force which animates 
matter. Upon these principles are founded the general laws of 
the communication of movements in accordance with which 
God acts incessantly. This is not the time to prove my contention, 
because it is sufficient for the present that you should know that 
bodies can neither set themselves in motion nor any bodies 
which they meet,—facts which our reasoning has just shown, and 
that there are certain laws in accordance with which God moves 
them unfailingly—a fact which experience teaches us. 


192 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


ARISTES. This seems to me incontestable. But what do you 
think of this, Theotimus? You never contradict Theodore. 


XII. THEotrmus. I have been convinced of these truths for 
a long time. But since you wish me to contest Theodore’s 
opinion, I ask you to solve a little difficulty. Here it is. I 
quite understand that a body cannot of itself set itself in motion ; 
but supposing it to be once moved, I maintain that it can set 
another body in motion, as a cause between which and its effect 
there is a necessary connection. For let us suppose that God 
had not yet established laws for the communication of motion, 
there would then in that case be no occasional causes. This 
being so, let the body A be set in motion, and in following the 
line of its motion let it slip on the body B, which I suppose 
to be concave and as the mould of the body A. What will 
happen ? Decide. 

ARISTES. What will happen? Nothing, for when there Is 
no cause there can be no effect. 

THEOTIMUS. What? Nothing? Something new must take 
place, for the body B will either be moved in consequence of 
the shock, or it will not be moved. 

ARISTES. It will not be. 

THEOTIMUS. So far, so good. But, Aristes, what becomes of 
the body A when it meets B? Either it will rebound or not. 
If it rebounds, we have a new effect of which B is the cause. 
If not, the matter is worse still, for we have then a force 
which is destroyed, or at least which does not act. The 
shock of bodies, then, is not an occasional cause, but a 
very real and veritable cause, since there is a necessary 
connection between the shock and such effect as you choose. 
This es 

ARISTES. Wait a moment, Theotimus. What is it you 
are proving? That bodies being impenetrable, it follows 
necessarily that at the moment of the shock God determines 
to make a choice with regard to what you have just put before 
me. That is all. I am not alarmed. You do not prove at all 
that a body in motion can by virtue of something which belongs 
to it move whatever it encounters. If God had not as yet 
established the laws for the communication of motion, the nature 
of bodies, their impenetrability, would constrain Him to make 
such laws. as He deemed fit, and He would determine Himself 


ON METAPHYSICS 198 


in accordance with those laws which are the simplest, if these 
latter were sufficient for the execution of the works which He 
willed to form out of matter. But it is clear that impenetrability 
has no efficacy of its own, and that it can only give God, who 
deals with things in accordance with their nature, an occasion 
for varying or diversifying His activity without changing any- 
thing in His mode of operation. 

Nevertheless, I am quite content to say that a body in 
motion is the true cause of the movement of those bodies which 
it encounters, for we must not quarrel about words. But what is 
a body in motion? It is a body transported by a divine act. 
The act which transports it can also transport that which it 
meets if it is directed upon it. Who calls this in question ? 
Yet this act, this moving force, belongs in no way to bodies. 
It is the activity of the will of Him who creates them or con- 
serves them successively in different places. Matter is essen- 
tially movable. It has, by its nature, a passive capacity for 
movement. But it has no active capacity ; it is actually moved 
only by the continual action of the Creator. Thus, no body 
can disturb another body by any activity which belongs to its 
own nature. If bodies had in themselves the force to set 
themselves in motion, the strongest would subvert those which 
they encountered, as efficient causes; but being moved only by 
another force, their contact or encounter is only an occasional 
cause which, because of their impenetrability, constrains the mover 
or Creator to distribute His action. And because God is bound to 
act in a simple and uniform way, He had to make general laws 
and the simplest possible ones, in order that when a change 
is necessary He should change as little as is possible, and in 
order that by the same mode of operation He should produce 
an infinity of different effects. It is thus, Theotimus, that I 
understand these matters. 

THEOTIMUS. You understand them very well. 


XIII. THEopoRE. Perfectly well. Weare, accordingly, agreed 
upon the principle. Let us pursue it a little further. You cannot, 
then, Aristes, of yourself move your arm or alter your position, 
situation, posture, do to other men good or evil, or effect the 
least change in the world. You find yourself in the world, 
without any power, immovable as a rock, stupid, so to speak, 
as a log of wood. Let your soul be united to your body as 

13 


194 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


closely as you please, let there come about a union between it 
and all the bodies of your environment. What advantage would 
you derive from this imaginary union? What would you do 
in order merely to move the tip of your finger, or to utter even 
a monosyllable ? Alas! unless God came to your aid, your 
efforts would be vain, the desires which you formed impotent ; 
for just think, do you know what is necessary for the pronun- 
ciation of your best friend’s name, or for bending or holding 
up that particular finger which you use most? But let us 
suppose that you know quite well what no one knows, about 
which even some scientists are not agreed, namely, that the arm 
can be moved only by means of the animal spirits, which flowing 
along the nerves to the muscles make them contract and draw 
towards themselves the bones to which they are attached. Let us 
suppose that you are acquainted with the anatomy and the action of 
your mechanism as well as a clockmaker is acquainted with his 
handiwork. But, at any rate, remember the principle that no one 
but the Creator of bodies can be their mover. This principle is 
sufficient to bind, indeed to annihilate, all your boasted faculties ; 
for, after all, the animal spirits are bodies, however small they 
may be. They are, indeed, nothing but the subtlest parts of 
the blood and the humours. God alone, then, is able to move these 
small bodies. He alone knows how to make them flow from 
the brain along the nerves, from the nerves through the muscles, 
from one muscle to its antagonist—all of which is necessary 
for the movement of our limbs. It follows that, notwithstanding 
the conjuction of soul and body in whatever way it may please 
you to imagine it, you would be dead and inert if it were not 
for the fact that God wills to adapt his volitions to yours—His 
volitions, which are always effective, to your desires, which 
are always impotent. This then, my dear Aristes, is the solu- 
tion of the mystery. All creatures are united to God alone in 
an immediate union. They depend essentially and directly 
upon Him. Being all alike equally impotent, they cannot be © 
in reciprocal dependence upon one another. One may, indeed, ~ 
say that they are united to one another and that they depend ~ 
upon one another. I grant this, provided it is not understood 
in the ordinary and vulgar sense of the term, provided that one _ 
agrees that they are so only in consequence of the immutable — 
and ever effective will of the Creator, only in consequence of — 
the general laws which He has established, and by means of © 


ON METAPHYSICS 195 


which He regulates the ordinary course of His providence.“ God 
has willed that my arm shall be set in motion at the instant 
that I will it myself (given the necessary conditions). His will 
is efficacious, His will is immutable, it alone is the source of 
my power and faculties. He has willed that I should experi- 
ence certain feelings, certain emotions, whenever there are 
present in my brain certain traces, or whenever a certain 
disturbance takes place therein. In a word, He has willed 
—He wills incessantly—that the modifications of the mind and 
those of the body shall be reciprocal. This is the con- 
junction and the natural dependence of the two parts of 
which we are constituted. It is but the mutual and reciprocal 
dependence of our modifications based on the unshakable 
foundation of the divine decrees—decrees which through their 
efficacy endow me with the power which I have over my body, 
and through it over certain other bodies—decrees which through 
their immutability unite me with my body, and through it to 
my friends, my possessions, my whole environment. I derive 
nothing whatever from my own nature, nothing from the nature 
imagined by the philosophers—all comes from God and His 
decrees. God has linked together all His works, though He 
has not on that account produced in them entities charged with 
the function of union. He has subordinated them to one another 
without endowing them with active qualities. The latter are but 
the vain pretensions of human pride, the chimerical productions of 
the philosophers’ ignorance. Men’s senses being affected by the 
presence of objects, their minds being moved by the inner feeling 
which they have of their own movements, they have not recog- 
nised the invisible operations of the Creator, the uniformity of 
His mode of action, the fruitfulness of His laws, the ever-present 
efficacy of His volitions, the infinite wisdom of His providence. 
Do not say any more, my dear Aristes, that your soul is united 
to your body more intimately than to anything else; since its 
immediate union is with God alone, since the divine decrees 
are the indissoluble bonds of union between the various parts 
of the universe and of the marvellous network of all the sub- 
ordinate causes. 


XIV. ArisTEs. Ah, Theodore, how clear, how sound and how 
Christian your principles are! Moreover, how estimable and affect- 
ing! Iamdeeply moved by them. What! It is then God Himself 


196 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


who is present in the midst of us, not as a mere spectator nor as an 
observer of our good and bad actions, but as the principle of our 
society, the bond of our friendship, the soul, so to speak, of the 
intercourse and communication which we have with one another. 
I can speak to you only through the efficacy of His powers, 
touch you or disturb you only by means of the movement which 
He communicates to me. I do not even know what arrange- 
ment of organs is necessary in order to make my voice utter 
what I am saying to you without any hesitation. The play 
of these organs is beyond me. The variety of words, tones, 
modulations, is almost infinite in detail. God knows this 
detail, He alone regulates the movement at the very instant 
of my desire Yes, He alone drives back the air which He has 
Himself made me breathe. He alone produces by means of my 
organs the vibrations and disturbances which are necessary. 
He alone diffuses them and makes out of them the words 
by the aid of which I can reach your mind and pour into your 
heart what mine can no longer keep within itself. In truth, 
it is not I who breathe; I breathe despite myself. It is 
not I who speak to you; I merely wish to speak to you. 
But suppose my breath did depend upon myself, suppose I 
knew exactly what to do in order to explain myself, suppose 
I could form words and give them utterance, how would they 
reach you, how strike your ears, how disturb your brain or affect 
your heart, were it not for the efficacy of the divine power which 
links together all the parts of the universe? Yes, Theodore, 
all this is a necessary consequence of the laws of the conjunction 
of soul and body and of the communication of motion. All 
this depends upon these two principles, of which I am convinced, 
that none but the Creator of bodies can be their mover, and 
that God communicates His power to us only through the estab- 
lishment of certain general laws, the realisation of which we 
determine through our various modifications. Ah, Theodore 
and Theotimus, God alone is the bond of our society. May He be 
its end, since He is its originating cause! Let us not abuse 
His power. Unhappy they who make use of it for their criminal 
passions! Nothing is more sacred than power, nothing more 
divine. It is a kind of sacrilege to make a profane use of it; 
now I see that to do this would mean to make the just avenger 
of crimes assist in iniquity. Of ourselves we can do nothing, 
hence of ourselves we ought to will nothing. We can act only 


ee 


ON METAPHYSICS 197 


through the efficacy of the divine power, hence we ought to 
will nothing except in accordance with the divine law. Nothing 
is more evident than these truths. 

THEODORE. These are excellent conclusions. 


XV. THEOTIMUS. They are wonderful principles for ethics. 
But let us return to metaphysics. Our soul is not united to 
our body in the ordinary sense of these terms. It is immediately 
and directly united to God alone. It is through the efficacy 
of His action alone that the three of us are here together; nay, 
more, that we all share the same opinion, are penetrated by 
the same truth, animated, it seems to me, by the same spirit, 
kindled with the same enthusiasm. God joins us together by 
means of the body, in consequence of the laws of the com- 
munication of movements. He affects us with the same feelings 
in consequence of the laws of the conjunction of body and 
soul. But, Aristes, how comes it about that we are so 
strongly united in mind? Theodore utters some words 
unto your ears. These are but the air struck by the organs 
of the voice. God transforms, so to speak, this air into words, 
into various sounds. He makes you understand these various 
sounds through the modifications by which you are affected. 
But where do you get the sense of the words from? Who is 
it that discloses to you and to myself the same truth as Theodore 
is contemplating ? Ifthe air which He forces back when speaking 
does not contain the sounds you hear, assuredly it will not 
contain the truths which you understand. 

ARISTES. I follow you, Theotimus. We are united in mind 
because all of us are united to the universal Reason which 
illumines all intelligences. I am wiser than you think. Theodore 
has already led me to the point to which you wish to conduct 
me. He has convinced me that there is nothing visible, nothing 
which can act upon the mind and reveal itself thereto, but the 
substance of Reason, which is not only efficacious but also 
intelligent. Yes, nothing that is created can be the immediate 
object of our knowledge. We see things in this material world, 
wherein our bodies dwell, only because our mind through its 
attention lives in another world, only because it contemplates 
the beauties of the archetypal and intelligible world which 
Reason contains. As our bodies live upon the earth and find 
sustenance in the fruits which it produces, so our minds feed on 


198 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of 
the divine Word contains. The words which Theodore utters 
into my ears urge me, in consequence of the law of the con- 
junction of soul and body, to be attentive to the truths which 
he is discovering in the supreme Reason. This turns my mind 
in the same direction as his. I see what he sees because I look 
where he looks, and by means of the words whereby I reply to 
his words, though both alike are, in themselves, devoid of sense, 
I discuss with him and enjoy with him a good which is common 
to all, for we are all essentially united to Reason, so united that 
without it we could enter into no social bond with anyone. 

THEOTIMUS. Your reply, Aristes, surprises me extremely. 
How, knowing all that you are now telling me, could you reply 
to Theodore that we are united to our body more intimately 
than to anything else ? 

ARISTES. I did so because one is inclined to say only what 
is present to the memory, and because abstract truths do not 
present themselves to the mind so naturally as those that one 
has heard all one’s life. When I have meditated as much 
as Theotimus I shall speak no more in mechanical fashion, but 
regulate my words in accordance with the deliverances of 
inner truth. I understand then now, and I shall not forget 
it all my life, that we are united immediately and directly 
to God. It is in the light of His wisdom that He makes 
us see the magnificence of His works, the model upon which 
He forms them, the immutable art which regulates their 
mechanism and movements, and it is through the efficacy of 
His will that He unites us to our body, and through our body 
to all those in our environment. 


XVI. THEODORE. You might add that it is through the 
love which He bears to Himself that He communicates to us 
that invincible enthusiasm which we have for the Good. But 
of this we shall speak on another occasion. It is sufficient for 
the present that you are quite convinced that the mind can 
be united immediately and directly to God alone, that we can 
have no intercourse with created beings except by the power of 
the Creator, which is communicated to us only in consequence of 
His laws, and that we can enter into no social union amongst our- 
selves and with Him except through the Reason with which 
He is consubstantial. This once granted, you will see that 


ie al ne om — = o>, = ow 
= = : ae 


ON METAPHYSICS 199 


it is of the highest importance for us to try to acquire 
some knowledge of the attributes of this supreme Being, since 
we are so much dependent upon Him; for, after all, He acts 
upon us necessarily according to His nature. His mode of 
activity must bear the character of His attributes. Not only 
must our duties tend towards His perfections, but our whole 
course of action ought to be so regulated in accordance with His 
that we may take the proper measures for the realisation of our 
purposes, and that we may find a combination of causes which 
is favourable to these designs. In this connection, faith and 
experience teach us many truths by means of the short-cut of 
authority and by the proofs of very pleasant and agreeable 
feelings. But all this intelligence does not give us forthwith ; it 
ought to be the fruit and the recompense of our work and applica- 
tion. For the rest, being made to know and love God, it is clear 
that there is no occupation which is preferable to the meditation 
upon the divine perfections which should animate us with charity 
and regulate all the duties of a rational creature. 

ARISTES. I understand quite well, Theodore, that the worship 
which God demands from mindsis a spiritual worship. It consists 
in being full of the knowledge of Him, full of love of Him, in 
forming judgments of Him which are worthy of His attributes, 
and in regulating in accordance with His will all the movements 
of our heart. For God is spirit, and He wishes to be worshipped 
in spirit and in truth. But I must confess that I am extremely 
afraid lest I should form judgments on the divine perfections 
which would dishonour them. Is it not better to honour them 
by silence and admiration, and to devote ourselves solely to 
investigation of the less sublime truths and those which are 
more in proportion to the capacity of our minds ? 

THEODORE. Howdo you mean, Aristes? You are not think- 
ing of what you are saying. We are made to know and love 
God. Do you mean, then, to say that you do not want us to 
think of Him, speak of Him, I might even add worship Him ? 
We ought, you say, to worship Him by silence and admiration. 
Yes, by a respectful silence which the contemplation of His 
greatness imposes upon us, by a religious silence to which the 
glory of His majesty reduces us, by a silence forced upon us, 
so to speak, due to our impotence, and not having as its source 
a criminal negligence or a misguided curiosity to know, instead 
of Him, objects less worthy of our application. What do you 


200 SEVENTH DIALOGUE 


admire in the Divine if you know nothing of Him? How could 
you love Him if you did not contemplate Him? How can 
we instruct one another in charity if we banish from our dis- 
cussion Him whom you have just recognised as the soul of all 
the intercourse which we have with one another, as the bond 
of our little society ? Assuredly, Aristes, the more you know 
the supreme Being, the more you will admire His infinite 
perfections. Do not fear lest you should meditate too much 
upon Him and speak of Him in an unworthy way, providing 
you are led by faith. Do not fear lest you should entertain 
false opinions of Him so long as they are in conformity with 
the notion of the infinitely perfect Being. You will not dis- 
honour the divine perfections by judgments unworthy of them, 
provided you never judge of Him by yourself, provided you do 
not ascribe to the Creator the imperfections and limitations 
of created beings. Think of this, therefore. I, too, shall think 
of it, and 1 hope Theotimus will do so likewise. That is necessary 
for the development of the principle which I think I ought to 
put before you. We shall meet to-morrow, then, at the usual 
hour, for it is time for me to leave. 

ARISTES. Adieu, Theodore. I beg of you, Theotimus, that 
the three of us should meet at the hour arranged. 

THEOTIMUS. I am going with Theodore, but I shall come 
back with him, as you desire it. Ah, Theodore, how changed 
Aristes is! He is attentive, he scoffs no more, he is no longer a 
stickler for forms—in a word, he listens to reason and submits 
to it in good faith. 

THEODORE. That is true, but his prejudices still come in 
the way and somewhat confuse his ideas. Reason and prejudice 
both have their turn in what he says. Now truth makes him 
speak, now memory plays tricks upon him. But his imagination 
dares no longer to revolt. This indicates that, he is sound at 
heart and encourages me a good deal. 

THEOTIMUS. What do you expect, Theodore? Prejudices 
are not so easily got rid of as an old coat which is no longer 
thought of. It seems to me that we have been like Aristes, for 
we were not born but became philosophers. It will be necessary 
to repeat to him the great principles ceaselessly, in order that 
he should think of them so often that his mind will obtain 
mastery over them, and that in the moment of need they may 
occur to him quite naturally. 


ON METAPHYSICS 201 


THEODORE. That is what I have been trying to do hitherto. 
But this makes it difficult for him, for he loves detail and variety 
of thoughts. I beg of you always to dwell upon the necessity of 
a thorough understanding of principles, in order to stop the 
vivacity of his mind, and please do not forget to meditate upon 
the subject of our discussion. 


EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


God and His attributes. 


THEODORE. Well, Aristes, what would you like todo? We 
must know what mood you are in, so that we can adapt what 
we have to say to it. 

ARISTES. I have thought over in my mind all that you have 
told me up till now, and I confess I could not resist the strength 
of the proofs upon which your principles are based. But on 
reflecting upon the subject of the divine Attributes which you 
have enumerated for us, I found so many difficulties that I was 
disheartened. This matter was too sublime, or too abstract 
for me. I could not reach it, and I find no point which would 
give me any hold upon it. 

THEODORE. What, you are not going to tell us anything? 

ARISTES. No, because I have nothing worth saying, nothing 
that satisfies me. I shall listen to you two, if you do 
not mind. 

THEODORE. But we do. However, since you do not wish 
to give us the result of your meditation, allow me to put some 
questions to you in order to ascertain what you feel in regard 
to what has occurred to me. 

ARISTES. Willingly. But, Theotimus ? 

THEODORE. Theotimus shall be the judge in reference to 
any small differences that may arise out of the divergence 
of our views. 

THEOTIMUS. The judge! How do you mean? It is Reason 
that must preside over us and decide authoritatively. 

THEODORE. I mean, Theotimus, that you shall be a sub- 
ordinate judge, and under the authority of Reason, and that 
you shall pronounce judgment only according to the laws which 
it prescribes to us as well as to you. Let us lose no time, 
please. Only do you confront what we say to each other 


with the deliverances of inner truth in order to wam and 
202 


ON METAPHYSICS 208 


correct him who may go astray. Come, Aristes, follow me, and 
only stop me when I pass by difficult points too lightly. 


I. By the Divine we understand the Infinite, the Being 
without restriction, Being infinitely perfect. But nothing finite 
can represent the Infinite. Hence it is enough to think of God 
to know that He exists. Do not be surprised, Theotimus, if 
Artistes lets this pass, for he had already agreed to this before 
you were here.* 

ARISTES. Yes, Theotimus, I am convinced that nothing finite 
can have enough reality to represent the Infinite. But I am 
certain that I see the Infinite. Hence the Infinite exists, since 
I see it, and I could not see it except in itself. As my mind is 
finite, the knowledge which I have of the Infinite is finite. I 
do not understand it. I do not fathom it. I am never quite 
certain that I shall ever be able to fathom it. Not only can 
I find no end therein, but I see that there is none. In a word, 
the perception which I have of the Infinite is imited. Yet the 
objective reality in which my mind, so to speak, loses itself has 
no limits. Of all this I cannot now have any doubts. 

THEOTIMUS. Nor I either. 

THEODORE. This being granted, it is clear that the word 
“God ” being only an abbreviated expression for Being infinitely 
perfect, it is a contradiction to suppose that we can be mistaken 
when we attribute to God nothing but what we see is fitting 
to belong to the infinitely perfect Being. For, if we are never 
mistaken when we predicate of the works of God, nothing but 
what we see clearly and distinctly belongs to the infinitely 
perfect Being, nothing but what we discover not in an idea 
distinct from God, but in His own substance, we may attribute 
to God, or to the infinitely perfect Being, all the perfections, 
however incomprehensible they may appear to us, provided we 
are certain that they are realities or veritable perfections,— 
realities and perfections, I say, which contain nothing of non- 
being, which are not limited by imperfections and limitations 
similar to those of created things. Observe now. 


II. God is the infinitely perfect Being. Hence God is 
independent. Think of this, Aristes, and stop me only when I 
speak of anything which you do not see clearly to be a perfection, 

t Dialogue II. 


204 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


or to belong to the infinitely perfect Being. God is independent. 
Hence He is unchangeable. 

ARISTES. God is independent, hence He is unchangeable! 
Why unchangeable ? 

THEODORE. Because there can be no effect or change without 
a cause. But God is independent of the activity of causes. _ 
Hence, if any change took place in God, He Himself would be 
the cause of it. But, although God is the cause and the principle 
of His volitions and decrees, He has never produced any change 
within Himself ; for His decrees, though perfectly free, are them- 
selves Sage and immutable, as I have already pointed out 
to you." God has made these decrees, or rather He forms them 
without ceasing in ‘His eternal wisdom, which is the inviolable 
law of His will. And, though the effects of these_decrees_are_ 
infinite and produce thousands upon thousands of changes in_ 
the universe, the decrees are always the same. That is so 
because the efficacy of these decrees is determined to action only 
by the circumstances of those causes which are called “‘ natural,” 
and which I think should be called ‘‘ occasional,’ for fear of 
countenancing the dangerous prejudice of a nature and an efficacy 
distinguished from the will of God and from His omnipotence. 

ARISTES. I do not quite understand all this. God is free 
and indifferent, for example, to the movement of any body or to 
any other effect you please. If He is thus indifferent, He can 
produce this effect or not produce it. This effect is a result of 
His decrees, I grant. But it is certain that God is able not to 
produce it. Hence, He is able not to will to produce it. God, 
therefore, is not immutable, since He can change His will, and 
not will to-morrow what He wills to-day. af 

THEODORE. You do not remember, Aristes, what I told 
you in our last discussion.* God is free, and even indifferent 
to thousands of effects. He can change His will in the sense 
that He is indifferent whether to will or not to will a certain 
effect. But observe. At this moment when you are seated, can 
you be standing up? You can, of course, do so absolutely ; 
but, on the supposition from which we start, you cannot. For 
you cannot be standing up and seated at the same time. 
Understand, then, that in God there is no succession of thoughts 
and volitions, that it is by an eternal and immutable act that — 
He knows all, and that He wills all that He wills. God wills 

1 Dialogue VIL. ® Dialogue IX, |... 


ON METAPHYSICS 205 


with perfect liberty and entire indifference to.create the world..He 
wills to make certain decrees and to establish simple and general 
_laws in order to govern the world 1 in a manner which shall bear 
“the character of His attributes. But these decrees, being laid 
down, cannot be changed, not because they are absolutely neces- 
sary, but by the force of the pre- supposition. Observe this well, 
that they are laid down once for all, and God, in forming them, 
knew so well what He was doing that they cannot be cancelled. 
For, although He has made some of them for a certain time, 
that is not because He changes His mind when this time arrives, 
but because one and the same act of His will has reference to the 
different times which are contained in His eternity. God, then, 
does not change, and cannot change, His designs, His thoughts, 
His volitions. He is immutable, and this is one of the perfec- 
tions of His nature ; nevertheless, He is perfectly free in all that 
He does outwardly. He cannot change because what He wills 
He wills without succession by a simple and invariable act; 
but He is able not to will it, because He wills freely what He 
wills actually. 

Artistes. I shall think over what you are telling me, 
Theodore. Let us pass on-to a further point. I believe that 
God isimmutable. It seems to me evident that it is a perfection 
not to be subject to change. That is sufficient for me. Even 
though I cannot reconcile the immutability of God with His 
liberty, I believe that He possesses both these attributes, since 
He is infinitely perfect. 





III. THEotrmus. Allow me, Theodore, to put a_ small 
difficulty before you. You said just now that the immutable 
decrees of God are determined to action only by the circumstances 
of the causes which are called ‘“‘ natural,’’ and which we call 
“‘occasional.”” These are your terms. But I ask you what 
becomes of miracles? The impact of bodies, for example, is 
the occasional cause of the communication of movement from 
one body to another. Cannot God, then, suspend in a certain 
case the effect of the general law of the communication of move- 
ments, and has He not often suspended it ? 

THEODORE. Once for all, Theotimus, and you too, Aristes— 
for I see that it is because of you that Theotimus wishes me to 
explain myself further; he sees that you do not quite grasp 
my meaning—once for all, Aristes, when I say that God always 


206 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


follows the general laws which He has prescribed for Himself, 
I refer only to His general and ordinary Providence. I do 
not debar miracles or effects which do not follow from His 
general laws. Moreover, Theotimus, and it is to you that I am 
speaking now, when God performs a miracle and when He does 
not act in accordance with the general laws which are known 
to us, I maintain either that God is then acting in accordance 
with other general. laws.which are unknown to us, or that what 
He does then is determined by certain circumstances which. He 
has had in view from all eternity when He produced the simple, 
eternal and invariable act, which includes both the general laws 
of His ordinary providence and the exceptions to these laws. i 
But these circumstances should not be called occasional causes in 
the same sense in which the impact of bodies, for example, is the 
occasional cause of the communication of movements, because God 
has made no general laws for regulating the activity of His volitions 
in a uniform way on the occasion of these circumstances. For 
in the case of exceptions to general laws God acts now in 
one way, now in another, though always in accordance with 
the dictates of that one of His attributes which is, so to speak, 
the most precious to Him at the moment. I mean that if what 
He then owes to justice is of greater importance than what He 
owes to His wisdom, or to all the other attributes, He will follow 
in this exception the dictates of His justice. For God always acts 
only in accordance with what He is, only in order to do honour 
to His divine attributes, only in order to satisfy what He 
owes to Himself, for He is His own principle and the end of all 
His own volitions, whether He is punishing us, showing us pity, 
or rewarding us for His own gifts, for the merits which we have 
won by His grace. But I am afraid, Theotimus, that Aristes 
will not be pleased with our digression. Let us come back 
to our point. We shall, moreover, be obliged in the discussions 
that follow to give an account of the principles upon which 
the explanation of the difficulties which you would raise 
depends. 

God, or the infinitely perfect Being, is, then, independent 


and immutable. He is also omnipotent, eternal, necessary, ~ 


immense... 

ARISTES. Gently. He is omnipotent, eternal, necessary, 
yes, these attributes befit a Being infinitely perfect. But why 
immense? What do you mean ? : 


ON METAPHYSICS 207 


IV. THEODORE. I mean that the divine substance is every- 
where, not only in the universe, but infinitely beyond. For 
God is not contained in His work—rather is His work in Him 
and subsists in His substance, which conserves it by its omnipo- 
tent power. It is in Him that we have being. It is in Him 
that we have movement and life, as the Apostle says, im tpso 
enim vivimus, movemur et sumus.t 

ARISTES. But God is not corporeal. Hence, He cannot be 
extended everywhere. 

THEODORE. It is because He is not corporeal that He can 
be everywhere. If He were corporeal, He could not penetrate 
bodies in the way in which He does penetrate them. For there 
is a contradiction in saying that two feet of extension are only 
one. As His divine substance is not corporeal, it is not locally 
extended as bodies are, big in an elephant, small in a gnat. It 
is all that it is, so to speak, wherever it is, and it is everywhere, 
or rather everything is init ; because the substance of the Creator is 
the intimate bond of union of all created things.’ Created extension 
is to the divine immensity as time is to eternity. _All bodies 
are extended in the immensity of God, just as all times succeed 
one another in His eternity. God is always all that He is with- 
out any temporal er iig He fills all His substance without 
being locally extended.” There is in His existence no past nor 
future; all is present, immutable, eternal. There is in His 
substance neither great nor small, all is simple, equal, infinite. 
God has created the world, but the will to create it has 
not passed away. God will change it, but the will to change it 
is not future. The will of God, what He has done and what 
He will do, is an eternal and immutable act, the effects of which 
change without there being any change in God. In a word, 
God has not been, will not be, but He zs. One can say that 
God was in the time that is past, but He was then all that He 
will be in the future time. His duration, if one may use this 
term, is, as His existence, in its entirety eternal, and in its 
entirety in all the moments which succeed one another in His 
eternity. In like manner God is not partly in heaven, partly 
on earth, He is all that He is in His immensity, and all that He is 
in the bodies which are locally extended in Hisimmensity, all that 
He is in all the parts of matter, though these are divisible ad 
injfintium ; or, to speak more accurately, God is not so much in 


t Acts xvii. 20. 


208 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


the world as the world is in Him, or in His immensity, just as 
eternity is not so much in time as time is in eternity. 

ARISTES. It seems to me, Theodore, that you are explaining 
one obscure thing by another which is not too clear. I do not 
feel so convinced as during the last few days. | 


V. THEODORE. I do not undertake, Aristes, to make you 
understand clearly the immensity of God and the way in 
which He is everywhere. This seems to me incomprehensible, 
just as it does to you. But I want to give you some idea 
of theimmensity of God by comparing it with His eternity. As 
you have granted that God is eternal, I thought I might be 
able to convince you that He is immense, by comparing the 
eternity which you accept with the immensity which you refuse 
to recognise. 

THEOTIMUS. What do you want Theodore to do? He is 
comparing divine things with divine things, that is the way 
to explain them, so far as explanation is possible at all. But 
you are comparing them with finite things. That is precisely 
the way to deceive yourself. The human mind does not fill 
any space; therefore, the divine substance is not immense. 
This is a false conclusion. Created extension is larger in a big 
space than in a small one. Hence, if God were everywhere, He 
would be larger in a giant than in a pygmy. This is another 
conclusion derived from a comparison of the infinite with the 
finite. If you wish to form any judgments with regard to the 
divine attributes, consult the infinite, the notion of the infinitely 
perfect Being, and do not stop at ideas of particular and finite 
beings. This is how Theodore is handling the subject. He does 
not judge of the divine immensity on the basis of ideas of 
created things, either corporeal or spiritual. He knows well that 
the divine substance is not subject to the imperfections and 
limitations inseparable from created beings. That is why he con- 
cludes that God is everywhere, and that He has nowhere the 
mode of being that belongs to bodies. 

ARISTES. What! God is here entirely so to speak, and 
also here and there and everywhere else, and in all the 
spaces which can be conceived beyond the world! That is 
unintelligible. 

THEODORE. Yes, God is in everything, or rather everything 
is in God, and the world, however large you imagine it to be, can 


ON METAPHYSICS 209 


neither equal nor be compared to Him. We cannot understand 
how this can be, I agree, but that is because the infinite is 
beyond us. Do you mean, then, to assert, Aristes, that God is 
not in your garden, in the sky, and wholly or entirely wherever 
He is? Do you dare to deny that God is everywhere ? 

ARISTES, He is present through His operation. But... 

THEODORE. How through His operation? What sort of 
reality can attach to the operation of God if it be distinguished 
and separated from His substance? By the operation of God 
you do not mean the effect which He produces; for the effect is 
not the action but the termination of the action. By the opera- 
tion of God you mean apparently the act whereby He operates. 
But if the act whereby God produces or conserves this chair 
is here, assuredly God Himself is here; and if He is here, He 
must be here wholly and entirely, and similarly in all other 
places where He operates. 

ARISTES. I believe, Theodore, that God is present in the 
world in the way in which you believe your soul is present in 
your body. For I know well that you do not think that the 
soul is diffused through all the parts of the body. It is in the 
head, because there it reasons. It is also in our arms and feet, 
because it sets them in motion. In the same way, God is in 
the world, because He conserves and governs it. 


VI. THEODORE. What a mass of prejudices and obscurities 
there is in your comparison! The soul is not in the body, 
nor is the body in the soul, though their modifications are 
reciprocal in consequence of the general laws of their union. 
But both are in God, who is the true cause of the mutual 
adaptation of their modifications. Minds are in the divine 
Reason and bodies in His immensity, but neither can be in 
the other, for mind and body have no essential relation to one 
another. It is with God alone that they have necessary relation. 
The mind can think without the body, but it can know nothing 
save in the divine Reason. Body can be extended with- 
out mind, but it cannot exist except in the immensity 
of God. The qualities of body have nothing in common 
with those of mind, for body cannot think, nor mind be 
extended. But the one, no less than the other, participates in 
the divine Being. God, who gives them their reality, possesses 
that reality, for He possesses all the perfections of all created 

14 


210 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


things without their limitations. He knows, as minds do. He 
is extended, as bodies are, but all this in a way entirely 
different from theirs. Thus God is everywhere in the world 
and beyond. But the soul is not present anywhere in bodies. 


It does not know in the brain as you imagine. It knows | 


only in the intelligible substance of the divine Word, though 
it knows in God only in virtue of what takes place in a 
certain portion of matter called the brain. Neither does it set 
the limbs of the body in motion by the application of a force 
which belongs to its nature. It moves them only because He 
who is everywhere in His immensity executes by His power 
the impotent desires of His creatures. Do not say then, Aristes, 
that God is in the world which He produces as the soul is in the 
body which it animates, for there is no truth in your comparison ; 


not only because the soul cannot be in the body, nor the body 
in the soul, but still more because as minds cannot operate in. 


the bodies which they animate, they cannot be diffused in 
them through their operation in the way in which you main- 
tain the divine operation is present in the world, through which 
operation alone, according to you, God is present everywhere. 

ARISTES. What you are saying now seems to me very 
difficult. I shall think about it, but meanwhile please tell me: 
before the world existed and God operated therein, where was 
He? 


VII. THEODORE. I put the question to you, Aristes, who 
maintain that God is present in the world only by His operation. 
You do not answer! Well, I say that before the creation of the 
world God was where He is now, and where He will be were 
the world to return to naught. He was in Himself. When 
I tell you that God is in the world and infinitely beyond it, you 
do not grasp my meaning if you believe that the world and the 
imaginary space beyond are, so to speak, the space which the 
infinite substance of the Divinity occupies. God is in the world 


only because the world is in.God,..for..God-is.only in Himself,” 


only in Hisimmensity. If He created new spaces, He would not 
thereby gain a new presence in consequence of these spaces. 
He would not increase Hisimmensity. He would not makea 
new place for Himself. He is eternally and necessarily where 
these spaces are created; but He is not there locally as the 
spaces are. Extension, Aristes, is a reality, and in the Infinite 


a 


ON METAPHYSICS 211 


all realities are present. God, then, is extended, no less than bodies 
are ; since God possesses all absolute realities or all perfections. 
But God is not extended in the way in which bodies are; for, 
as I have just told you, He has not the limitations and imper- 
fections of created things. God knows, as created minds do, but 
He does not think in the manner in which they do. He is 
Himself the immediate object of His knowledge. There is in 
Him no succession or variety of thoughts. One of His thoughts 
does not exclude, as in our case, the being of others. They are 
not mutually exclusive. In like manner God is extended, 
no less than bodies, but there are no parts in His substance. 
One part does not imply, as in the case of bodies, the non-being 
of another part, and the place of His substance is but His sub- 
stance itself. He is always one and always infinite, perfectly 
simple and composed, so to speak, of all realities and of all 
perfections. The true God is Being, and not a particular 
being, as He Himself said to Moses, His servant, through the 
mouth of the commissioned angel. He is being without 
restriction, and not a finite being, or a being made up, so to 
speak, of being and non-being. Do not, then, attribute to God 
whom we worship anything but what you conceive in the 
infinitely perfect Being. Do not take away from Him anything 
but what is finite, or what partakes of non-being. And, though 
you do not understand clearly all that I am telling you, even 
as I do not understand it myself, you will understand at least 
_ that God is such as I am representing Him to be; for you 
ought to know that in order to judge worthily of God we must 
attribute to Him only attributes which are incomprehensible. 
This is evident, since God is infinite in every sense, since 
nothing finite is fitting for Him, and since all that is infinite in 
every sense is in every way incomprehensible to the human 
mind. 

ArIsTES. Ah! Theodore, I am beginning to realise that I was 
entertaining quite unworthy views of God, because I judged of Him 
confusedly by the standard of myself, or by ideas which can only 
represent finite things. It seems to me evident that any judg- 
ment which is not based on the notion of the infinitely perfect 
Being, of the incomprehensible Being, is not worthy of the 
Divine. Assuredly, if the Pagans had not abandoned that notion, 
they would not have made false gods of their chimeras ; and if 
Christians always followed this notion of Being, or of the 


212 KIGHTH DIALOGUE 


Infinite, which is naturally engraved upon our mind, they would 
not speak of God in the way some of them do. 


VIII. THEoTIMUS. You seem to be quite content, Aristes, 
with what Theodore has just told you, namely, that the attributes 
of God are incomprehensible in every way. Still, Iam afraid 
there is some ambiguity in this. For it seems to me that we 
can form a clear conception of an immense extension, and one 
which has no limits. The mind does not understand or measure 
this extension: I agree. Yet it knows clearly its nature and its 
properties. But now, what is the immensity of God if not an 
infinite intelligible extension, through which not only is God 
present everywhere, but in which we see spaces which have no 
limits? It is, then, not true that the immensity of God is in 
every sense incomprehensible by the human mind, since we 
know intelligible extension quite clearly, so clearly that it is 
in it and through it that geometricians discover all their 
demonstrations. 

ARISTES. It seems to me, Theotimus, that you do not quite 
grasp Theodore’s meaning. But I have not meditated sufficiently 
upon the matter. I cannot explain to you very well what I 
only half see myself. I will ask you, Theodore, to answer for me. 

THEODORE. What! Theotimus, are you confusing the divine 
immensity with intelligible extension? Do you not see that 
there is an infinite difference between these two things? The 
immensity of God is His substance itself spread out everywhere, 
and all of it is present everywhere, filling all places without local 
extension, and this I submit is quite incomprehensible. Intelli- 
gible extension, on the other hand, is only the substance of God 
in so far as it is representative of bodies, in so far as it is capable 
of being participated in by them, with the limitations and 
imperfections which are proper to them, and which this intelligible 
extension represents, being their idea or archetype. No finite 
mind can understand the immensity of God, or any of the other 
attributes or ways of being of the divine, if I may express 
myself so. These ways of being are always infinite, always divine, 
and always, therefore, incomprehensible. Nothing, on the other 
hand, is clearer than intelligible extension. Nothing is more 
intelligible than the ideas of bodies, since it is through them that 
we know quite distinctly not the nature of God, but the nature of 
matter. Assuredly, Theotimus, if you judge of the immensity of God 





ON METAPHYSICS 213 


by means of the idea of extension, you are giving God a corporeal 
extension. You can make this extension as infinite, as immense 
as you please, but you will not remove from it the imperfections 
which this idea represents. The substance of God will no 
longer be all of it wherever it is. In judging of God by means 
of the idea of created things, you will be corrupting the notion 
of the infinitely perfect Being, of the Being who is incomprehen- 
sible in every way. Therefore, be very careful, both of you, 
about the judgments which you form with regard to what I 
am telling you of the Divinity ; for I warn you once for all that 
when I speak of God and His attributes, if you understand 
what I am saying, and if you have an idea of it which 
is clear and in proportion to the finite capacity of your 
mind, then either I am mistaken, or you do not grasp 
what I mean. For all the absolute attributes of the Divine 
are incomprehensible to the human mind, though it can 
understand clearly whatever there is in God which is related 
to created things, I mean the intelligible ideas of all possible 
productions. 

THEOTIMUS. I see quite well, Theodore, that I was mistaken 
in confusing the infinite intelligible extension with the immen- 
sity of God. This extension is not the divine substance 
spread out everywhere, but is this substance, in so far as it is 
representative of bodies and capable of being participated in 
by them, in the way in which a corporeal thing can _partici- 
pate imperfectly in Being. I know quite well, nevertheless, 
that an infinite corporeal extension, such as some conceive the 
universe to be, which according to them is made up of an infinite 
number of vortices, would still have nothing divine in it. For 
God is not the Infinite in extension, but ¢he Infinite simply. He 
is Being without restriction. But it is a property of the Infinite, 
which is incomprehensible by the human mind, as I have heard 
you say often, to be at the same time one and all things, com- 
pounded, so to speak, of an infinity of perfections, and so simple 
that each perfection which He possesses includes within itself all 
the others without any real distinction. This property certainly 
is less suited for a material universe and for the parts of which 
it is composed than for the substance of the soul, which, without 
any separation of parts, can receive at the same time modifica- 
tions which are different ; a slight indication, nevertheless, of 
the divine simplicity and universality. 


214 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


THEODORE. Youare right, Theotimus. There is no substance 
more imperfect, more distant from the Divine than matter, 
be it even infinite. It corresponds perfectly to intelligible exten- 
sion, which is its archetype, but it does not correspond to the 
divine immensity except in a very imperfect way; and it does 
not correspond at all to the other attributes of the infinitely 
perfect Being. 


IX. Artistes. What you are saying now makes me under- 
stand what the unbeliever of these days, who makes his God out 
of the universe, has not grasped. He was a veritable atheist. But 
I cannot help thinking of a number of good people who, for 
lack of a little philosophy, entertain unworthy opinions of 
the Divinity. Their God is not the universe, he is the creator 
of the universe. This is about all they know of him. It would 
be a great deal, if they adhered to that without corrupting the 
notion of the infinite. But, in truth, I pity them when I think 
of the idea‘which they form of the incomprehensible Being. 
Theotimus was quite right when he said that men naturally 
humanise all things. Moreover, if all that they did was merely 
to incarnate, so to speak, the Divinity by endowing it with quali- 
ties which belonged to them—that would be pardonable. But 
there are some who deprive it of all the incomprehensible 
attributes and of all the characteristics which are essential to 
the infinitely perfect Being, with the exception of power ; 
furthermore, they distribute the latter between it and what 
they call nature in such a way that, though they leave to God 
the best share, they rob Him of all means of exercising it. 

TuHeEotTimus. They do so, Aristes, for fear of tiring, or at any 
rate debasing, the Divine Majesty by petty tasks, by actions 
unworthy of His application and greatness. For we naturally 
believe that God would be content with the opinions we have 
of Him when we make Him such as we should like ourselves to 
be. Man is always moved by the inner feeling which he has 
of all that goes on in his own mind and heart. He cannot help 
but feel confusedly what he is and what he would desire to be. 
So he projects himself naturally into the objects of his know- 
ledge and measures by the standard of humanity not only 
everything in his environment, but even the infinite substance 
of the Divine. It is true that the notion of the infinitely perfect 
Being is deeply impressed upon our mind. We never are without 


ON METAPHYSICS 215 


thinking of Being. But so far from, taking the vast and 
immense notion of Being without restriction for a standard 
whereby to estimate the Divinity which presents itself to us 
without ceasing, we take this immense notion as a pure 
fiction of the mind. This is the case, Aristes, because Being in 
general never strikes our senses, and because we judge of 
the reality and solidity of objects by the force with which they 
disturb us. 

ARISTES. I understand all that quite well, Theotimus. It is 
precisely what Theodore told me seven or eight days ago. My 
mind can get no grip of the abstract ideas which you put before 
me. Iam not sensuously affected by them. But I do not conclude 
from this that they are only phantoms. I believe that they 
are sublime truths, to which one can attain only by silencing 
one’s imagination and senses, and by lifting oneself above oneself. 
And I am quite resolved in the future not to judge of God by 
myself, or by ideas which represent created things, but solely 
by the notion of the infinitely perfect Being. Please continue, 
Theodore, to question and instruct me. 


X. THEODORE. Very well, let us continue. You believe 
that God is good, wise, just, merciful, patient, severe. 

ARISTES. Gently. These terms are quite general ; I mistrust 
them. I believe that God is wise, good, just, compassionate, and 
that He has all the other qualities which Scripture assigns to Him. 
But I do not know whether all who pronounce these words mean 
the same thing by them. The infinitely perfect Being is good, 
just, full of compassion. This seems to me obscure. Define 
these terms for me. 

THEODORE. Oh, Aristes, you suspect a surprise. You do 
well. When one is philosophising over subtle and sublime 
matters, one must beware of ambiguities, and the commonest 
terms are not the most exempt from them. It is necessary 
then to define these words. But that is not so easy. Answer 
‘me first with regard to a matter which may help to render them 
clearer. Do you think that God knows and wills ? 

ARISTES. So far as that goes, yes. I do not doubt but that 
God knows and wills. 

THEODORE. How is it that you have no doubt about it? 
Is it because you know and will yourself ? 
ArRIsTES. No, Theodore. Itis because I recognise that know- 


216 KIGHTH DIALOGUE 


ing and willing are perfections. For, although I feel that I suffer, 
although I doubt, I am certain that God does not feel or doubt. 
And when I say that God knows and wills, I do not maintain 
that He does so in the manner of men. I maintain only that 
God wills and knows, and I leave it to you and Theotimus to 
explain the manner in which He wills and knows. 

THEODORE. What do you mean by “‘themanner’’? All the 
divine ways are incomprehensible. We do not know how we 
know ourselves, nor how we will; for having no clear idea of 
our soul, we cannot apprehend anything clearly in our own 
modifications. Still less, therefore, shall we be able to explain 
to you exactly the manner in which God knows or wills. Never- 
theless, consult the notion of the infinitely perfect Being. See 
whether I am following it. For I tell you boldly that God is 
to Himself His own light, and that He discerns within His own 
substance the essences of all beings and all their possible modifica- 
tions, and in His decrees He discerns their existence and all 
their actual modifications. 

ARISTES. It seems to me that you are not venturing very 
far. 


XI. THEODORE. I do not claim to do so either. But since 
you accept the principle, let us draw the conclusions that follow 
from it. God knows in Himself all that He knows. Hence all 
truths are in God, for, He being infinitely perfect, none can escape 
His knowledge. Hence His substance contains all intelligible 
relations, for truths are nothing but relations which are real, 
while falsities are relations which are imaginary. Hence God is 
not only wise, but Wisdom itself; not only does He know, but 
He is knowledge itself; not only is He illumined, but the light 
itself which illumines both Himself and all intelligences. For it 
is in His own light that you see what I see, and that He Himself 
sees what both of us see. I see that all the diameters of a circle 
are equal. I am certain that God Himself sees this, and that all 
minds either see it actually or are capable of seeing it. Yes, Iam 
certain that God sees precisely the same thing as I see, the same 
truth, the same relation which I am aware of now as holding 
absolutely between 2 and 2 and 4. But God cannot see anything 
except in His substance. Hence this truth which I see I must 
seein Him. You know all that, Aristes, and have already agreed 
to it. Yet these principles escape us so easily, and they are 


ON METAPHYSICS 217 


moreover of such great importance, that it is no loss of time to 
recall them to one’s mind and to become familiar with them. 

ARISTES. That then is one of the great differences between 
the way in which God knows and the way in which we know. God 
knows all things in Himself, and we know nothing in ourselves. 
We know nothing except in a substance which is not ours. God 
is wise through His own wisdom. We can become wise only 
through the union which we have with the wisdom which is eternal, 
immutable, necessary, common to all intelligences. For it is 
quite clear that a mind so limited as ours cannot find in its own 
substance the ideas or the archetype of all possible beings and 
of their infinite relations. Moreover, I am so certain that 
men, angels, and God Himself see the same truths which I see, 
that I can have no doubt as to whether it is the same light which 
illumines all minds. 


XII. THEotimus. Assuredly, Aristes, if God knows precisely 
what we see when we think that twice two are four, it is in God 
alone that we see this truth, for God sees it only in His own 
wisdom. Indeed, He only sees that we are thinking of it now in 
His decrees and in His eternity, for He does not derive His 
knowledge from what takes place actually in His creatures. 
But can we not say that minds do not see the same truths, but 
similar ones ? God sees that twice two make four. You see it, 
I see it. We have here three similar truths, and not a single 
and unique truth. 

ARISTES. We have here three similar perceptions of one 
and the same truth, but how can we have three similar truths ? 
And who has told you that they are similar? Have you compared 
your ideas with mine, and with God’s, in order to recognise their 
resemblance clearly? Who has told you that to-morrow, or 
that through all the centuries, you will see as you do to-day 
that twice two make four? Who has told you even that God 
cannot make minds capable of seeing clearly that twice two 
do not make four? Assuredly, you see the same truth as I, but 
you do so by means of a perception which is not mine, though 
perhaps it resembles mine. You see a truth which is common 
to all minds, but by means of a perception which belongs to you 
alone, for our perceptions, our feelings, our modifications are 
particular. You see a truth which is immutable, necessary, 
eternal. For you are so certain of the immutability of yonr 


218 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


ideas that you have no fear lest you should find them to-morrow 
all changed. Since you know that they were before you, you 
are also assured that they will not disappear. But if your ideas 
are eternal and immutable, it is evident that they cannot have 
being except in the eternal and immutable ists of the 
Divine. That cannot be disputed. It is in God alone that 
we can see truth. In Him alone is the light which illumines 
Himself and allintelligences. Heis wise through His own wisdom, 
but we cannot be wise except through our union with Him. Let 
us not dispute these principles. They are evident, it seems to me, 
and the ground of the certitude which we find in the sciences. 

THEOTIMUS. I am very glad, Aristes, to see that you are 
convinced not only that the power of God is the efficient cause 
of our knowledge, for I believe that you do not doubt this, but 
also that His wisdom is the formal cause which illumines us 
immediately and without the intermediation of any created 
thing. I see quite well that Theodore has talked to you on 
this matter. I also owe to him what you have learnt from 
him, and which he says he learnt from St. Augustine. 

THEODORE. We are all agreed, then, that God is infinitely 
wise, and this, essentially and in Himself, by the necessity of 
His being; that men can be wise only through the light of the 
divine wisdom; that this light is communicated to them in 
virtue of their attention, which is the occasional cause that 
determines the action of the general laws of the conjunction 
of their mind with the universal Reason, as we shall explain in 
the sequel. Let us prove now that God is just. 


XIII. God contains in the simplicity of His being the ideas 
of all things and their infinite relations, generally all truths. 
Now, there may be distinguished in God two kinds of relations 
or truths, relations of magnitude and relations of perfection, 
speculative truths and practical truths, relations which call forth 
only judgments and others which in addition excite movements. 
Nevertheless, relations of perfection cannot be known clearly unless 
they are expressed in relations of magnitude. But we need not 
delay over this matter. Twice two are four is a relation of equality 
in magnitude, is a speculative truth which excites no movement 
in thesoul, neither love nor hate, neither respect nor disdain. Man 
is of greater value than the beast, that is a relation of inequality 
in perfection which demands not merely that the soul should 


ON METAPHYSICS 219 


accept it, but that our love and esteem should be regulated by 
the knowledge of this relation or truth. Observe then, God 
contains in Himself all relations of perfection. But He knows 
and loves all that He possesses in the simplicity of His own being. 
Hence, He esteems and loves everything in proportion as it 
is worthy of love and esteem. Invincibly He loves the immu- 
table order which consists and can consist only in the relations 
of perfection which subsist between His attributes and between 
the ideas which He contains in His substance. He is, therefore, 
just in essence and through Himself. He cannot sin, for loving 
Himself invincibly He cannot but be just to His divine perfec- 
tions, to all that He is, to all that He contains. He cannot 
even will positively and directly to produce any disorder in His 
work, for He esteems all things according to the degree of perfec- 
tion of their archetypes. For example, He cannot without 
reason will that the mind shall be subject to the body; and 
if-this is the case, it is because man is no longer such as God 
has made him. He cannot favour injustice; and if that is so, 
it is because the uniformity of His working must not depend 
on the irregularity of ours. The time of His vengeance will 
come. He cannot will anything that corrupts His work; and 
if there are monsters who disfigure it, it is because He does 
greater honour to His attributes by the simplicity and generality 
of His ways than by immunity from the defects which He per- 
mits in the universe, and which He produces therein in virtue 
of the general laws which He has established for the sake of 
better effects than the production of monsters, as we shall explain 
in the sequel. Thus, God is just in Himself, just in His ways, 
just essentially, because all His volitions necessarily conform to 
the immutable order of justice which He owes to Himself and 
to His divine perfections. 

Man, on the other hand, is not just in himself. For as 
the immutable order of justice, which comprehends all the 
relations of perfection of all possible beings and their qualities, 
is only in God alone, and not in our own modifications, it 
would follow that if man loved himself by a movement 
of which he was himself the cause, so far from his self-love 
making him just, it would corrupt him infinitely more than 
the self-love of the wickedest of men. For there was never a 
soul so black and possessed by a self-love so irregular but that 
the beauty of the immutable order could move it on certain 


220 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


occasions. We are, then, perfectly just only when, seeing in 
God what He sees within Himself, we judge of what we then see 
as God judges, and esteem and love what He esteems and loves. 
Hence, so far from being just through ourselves, we shall never 
be so until the time when, delivered from this body of ours 
which confuses all our ideas, we see without obscurity the 
eternal law in accordance with which we shall regulate in an 
exact manner all the judgments and movements of our heart. 
Not that we cannot say that those who have charity are truly 
just, though they often form very unjust judgments. They are 
just so far as the disposition of their heart is concerned. But 
they are not just in all strictness, because they do not know 
exactly all the relations of perfection which ought to regulate 
their esteem and love. 


XIV. Aristes. I understand, Theodore, from what you are 
saying now that justice as well as truth dwells, so to speak, 
eternally in an immutable nature. The just and the unjust, like 
the true and the false, are no inventions of the human mind 
as certain corrupt intellects maintain. Men, they say, have 
made laws for themselves for their mutual security. It is on 
the basis of self-interest that they made them. They have come 
to an agreement among themselves, and by that compact they 
are bound; for he who breaks the compact, being weaker than 
the rest, finds himself among enemies who will satisfy their 
self-interest in punishing him. Thus, through self-love a man is 
bound to obey the laws of the country in which he lives, not 
because they are just in themselves, but because in submitting 
to them he need have no fear of those who are stronger. 
According to these writers everything accrues to men by nature. 
Each man has a right to all things, and if I cede my right it 
is because I am obliged to do so by the force of the other com- 
petitors. Thus self-love is the rule of my actions. My law is 
an external power; and if I were the stronger I should re-enter 
naturally into the possession of all my rights. Can anyone say 
anything more brutish and senseless than this ? Force has con- 
ferred upon the lion empire over the other brutes; and I admit 
that through it men often encroach upon one another. But to 
believe that this ought to be permitted, and that the strongest 
has a right to all things, without his ever being able to commit 
an injustice, is assuredly to put oneself on the level of animals, 


ON METAPHYSICS 221 


and to make of human society an assemblage of brute beasts. 
Yes, Theodore, I agree that the immutable order of justice is 
a law with which even God never dispenses, and in accordance 
with which, it seems to me, all minds must regulate their conduct. 
God is just in essence and by the necessity of His being. But 
let us just see whether He is good, compassionate, patient. For 
it seems to me that all this can hardly be in accord with the 
severity of His justice. 


XV. THEODORE. You are right, Aristes, God is neither good, 
compassionate, nor patient in the vulgar sense of these terms. 
These attributes as they are ordinarily understood are unworthy 
of the infinitely perfect Being. But God possesses these qualities 
in the sense which Reason indicates to us, and which Holy 
Scripture, which cannot contradict itself, leads us to believe. 
In order to explain this more distinctly, let us see whether God 
is essentially just in the sense that he necessarily rewards good 
deeds and punishes inevitably all those who offend Him, and 
who, so to speak, wound His attributes. 

ARISTES. I see quite well, Theodore, that if created beings are 
capable of offending God, He will not fail to avenge Himself, loving 
Himself as He does by the necessity of His nature. But that God 
is capable of being offended seems to me inconceivable. And if 
that were possible, He would, since He loves Himself, necessarily 
never have given being to creatures who are capable of resisting 
Him, or at least He would never have given them the power 
or liberty to resist Him. Is not this evident ? 

THEODORE. You are raising a difficulty, Aristes, which will 
soon be cleared up. Follow me, pray, without forestalling me. 
Is it not clear from what I have just said that the immutable 
order is the law of God, the inviolable rule of His will, and that 
He cannot prevent Himself from loving things in proportion as 
they are worthy of love? 

ARISTES. That is what you have just demonstrated. 

THEODORE. It follows that God cannot will that His 
creatures should not love in accordance with His immutable 
order. He cannot exempt them from following this law. He 
cannot will that we should love best what least deserves to be 
loved. What! you hesitate ? Does not this seem to you certain ? 

ARISTES. I find some difficulty in it. I am convinced by 
a kind of inner feeling that God cannot will that one should 


222 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


esteem and love best that which deserves least to be loved or 
esteemed. But I do not see it quite clearly. For what does 
our love and esteem matter to God? Nothing at all. We 
perhaps wish to be esteemed or loved because we have 
need of each other. But God is so far above His creatures 
that He apparently takes no interest in the opinions which we 
entertain of Him and of His works. This has at least some 
plausibility. 

THEODORE. It has but too much for corrupt minds. It is 
true, Aristes, that God is not afraid of and hopes for nothing 
from our opinions. He is independent and abundantly sufficient 
unto Himself. Nevertheless, He necessarily takes an interest 
in our judgments and the movements of our heart. And here is 
the proof of it. All minds are possessed of a will, and are capable 
of willing or loving only because of the natural and irresistible 
movement towards the Good which God incessantly impresses 
upon them. Now, God acts upon us only because He wills 
to do so, and He can will thus to act only through His will, 
only through the love which He bears towards Himself and 
His divine perfections. And it is the order of these divine 
perfections which, strictly speaking, constitutes His law, since 
He is just essentially and by the necessity of His being, as I 
have just proved to you. He cannot, therefore, will that our 
love, which is but the effect of His love, should be contrary to 
His, or should tend towards that to which His love does not 
tend. He cannot desire us to love that best which is least 
worthy of love. He necessarily wills the immutable order 
which is His natural law to be likewise our law. From this 
law He can neither exempt Himself nor us. And, since He has 
so made us as to leave us the choice whether to follow or not 
to follow this natural and indispensable law, it follows that we 
are capable of being punished or rewarded. Yes, Aristes, if we 
are free, it proves that we can be happy or unhappy; and if 
we are capable of happiness and unhappiness, the fact affords 
a certain proof of our freedom. A man whose heart is dis- 
ordered through the bad use he makes of his liberty comes under 
the order of justice which God owes to His divine perfections, 
if this sinner is unhappy in exact proportion to his unruliness. 
Now, God loves order irresistibly. Therefore, He inevitably 
punishes those who offend against it. Not that the sinner offends 
against God in the sense in which one man offends against another, 


ON METAPHYSICS 223 


not that God punishes him out of the pleasure which He takes 
in vengeance; but God can act only in accordance with 
what He is, in accordance with the requirements of the immutable 
order of the necessary relations of all that he contains, of that 
order whose character the arrangements of the parts of the 
universe must bear. Thus, God is not indifferent in regard to 
the punishment of our sins. He is neither merciful nor compas- 
sionate, nor good, in the vulgar sense of these ideas; He is just 
in essence and out of the natural and necessary love which He 
bears towards His divine perfections. He can delay reward 
~ and punishment according as the order of His providence demands 
or allows—an order which ordinarily compels Him to follow the 
general laws which He has established to govern the world 
in a way which shall bear the character of His attributes. 
But He cannot exempt Himself from paying men sooner or 
later according to their deeds. God is good to the good, bad, 
so to speak, to the bad, as it is written: “‘ Cum electo electus 
eris, et cum perverso perverteris.”” }fjeis kind and compassionate, 
but He is so in His Son and through His Son. “ For God so 
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life.’ He is good to sinners in the sense that through 
Jesus Christ He gives them the grace necessary for changing 
the evil inclinations of their heart, so that they should cease to be 
sinners, so that they should do good deeds, and that they, having 
become good and just, He might be gracious towards them, forgive 
them their sins, in view of the atonement of Jesus Christ, and to 
crown His own gifts, or the merits which they will have won 
through the good use of His grace. But God is always severe, 
always strictly observant of eternal laws, always acting in accord- 
ance with what He is, in accordance with the requirements of His 
own attributes, or that immutable order of the necessary relations 
of the divine perfections contained in the substance which He 
loves irresistibly and by the necessity of His own being. All this, 
Aristes, isin accordance with Scripture no less than with the notion 
which all men have of the infinitely perfect Being, though it 
is by no means in accordance with the gross ideas of those stupid 
and hardened sinners who want a God compliant and indulgent 
like a man, or a God who should not interfere in our affairs and 
should be indifferent to the life which we lead. 
ARISTES. I do not think these truths can be doubted. 


224 EIGHTH DIALOGUE 


THEODORE. Think them over carefully, so that you may 
remain convinced of them, not only through a kind of inner 
feeling by the aid of which God inculcates these truths in all 
those whose heart is not entirely hardened and corrupted, 
but still more by evidence of such a character that you could 
use it to convince those rare geniuses who believe themselves 
to have found in the love of self the true principles of natural 
morality. 


NINTH DIALOGUE 


God always acts in accordance with His nature—He has created all things 
for the sake of His glory in Jesus Christ, and He did not form His 
designs without prior regard to the ways of their realisation. 


I. THEODORE. What do you think to-day, Aristes, of what 
we were talking of yesterday ? Have you been contemplating 
the notion of the Infinite, the Being without limitation, the 
infinitely perfect Being, and can you now envisage it in all its 
purity without clothing it with ideas that belong to the world 
of created things, without embodying it, so to speak, without 
limiting it or corrupting it, so as to adapt it to the weakness of 
the human mind ? . 

ARISTES. Ah, Theodore! How difficult it is to separate 
the notion of Being in general from the ideas of particular finite 
beings! How difficult it is not to attribute to God anything 
of that one feels in oneself! We are always ascribing human 
attributes to God ; naturally we tend to limit the Infinite. That 
is So because the mind seeks to comprehend the incomprehensible; 
it would see the invisible God. The mind looks for the in- 
comprehensible in the ideas of created beings, and stops short 
with the feelings affecting and penetrating it. But how far all 
this is from really representing the Divine, and what strange 
opinions about the attributes of God and His adorable Providence 
do those people form, who judge of the divine perfections by 
the inner feeling which they have of what takes place in them- 
selves. I can understand vaguely what you are saying, but not 
sufficiently to make it quite clear to myself. 

THEODORE. You have been meditating, Aristes. I can see 
that by your answer. You understand that in order to judge 
rightly of the divine attributes and of the rules of Providence 
it is necessary ever to keep apart from the notion of Being the 
ideas of particular beings and never to consult one’s inner 
feelings. That is sufficient. Let us continue our journey, and 

15 225 


226 NINTH DIALOGUE 


take care, all the three of us, lest we strike against the dangerous 
rock of judging of the Infinite by means of notions adapted only 
to the finite. 

ARISTES. We are sure to doso, Theodore, for all the currents 
tend that way. That I have fully realised since yesterday. 

THEODORE. That is so, Aristes, but perhaps we shall escape 
being wrecked. At any rate, let us not strike against the rocks 
recklessly, as most men do. I hope that through our mutual 
vigilance we shall avoid a large number of dangerous errors into 
which men fall blindly. Let us not give our natural laziness so 
much credit, Aristes. Courage! Ourcommon Master, who is the 
Author of our Faith, will grant us some understanding of it, 
if we but interrogate Him earnestly and with the respect and 
submission which is due to His word, and to the infallible authority 
of His Church. Let us begin then. 


II. Yesterday you agreed that God knew and willed, not 
because we know and will, but because knowing and willing are 
veritable perfections. What do you think about this now? 
To-day I mean to consider the Divine in its ‘‘ ways’ and as going 
out of itself, so to speak, as adopting the plan of externalising 
itselfin the production of its creations. Thus it is important to be 
sure that God knows and wills, since without this assurance it is 
impossible to understand how He could produce anything in 
the external world. For how would He act wisely without 
knowledge ? How could He make the universe without willing 
to do so? Do you then believe, Aristes, that He who is self- 
sufficient is capable of forming any desire ? 

ARISTES. You are questioning me in such a way as to raise 
within me ever new doubts. I see quite well that you do this 
because you do not wish to take me by surprise, nor to leave to 
prejudices any chance of retreat. Very well then, Theodore, 
I do not doubt that God knows, but I do doubt whether He can 
ever will anything or whether He ever has willed anything ; 
for what could He will, He who is fully sufficient unto Himself ? 
We will, we human creatures, but the fact that we will is a sure 
sign of our poverty. Not having what we need, we desire it. 
But the infinitely perfect Being can will nothing, desire nothing, 
since He sees quite well that He is in want of nothing. 

THEODORE. Oh! oh! Aristes, you surprise me. God can 
will nothing! But howso? Can the infinitely perfect Being have 


ON METAPHYSICS 227 


created us despite Himself, and without having willed our crea- 
tion? We are or exist, Aristes, this fact is indisputable. 

ARISTES. Yes, we are, but we are not made. Our nature 
is eternal. We are a necessary emanation from the Divine. We 
form a part of the divine Being. The infinitely perfect Being 
is the universe, is the assemblage of all that is. 

THEODORE. Indeed! 

ARISTES. Do not suppose, Theodore, that I am impious and 
foolish enough to yield to these dreams? But I should very much 
like you to show me how to refute them, for I have heard there 
are some people sufficiently corrupted to allow themselves to 
be fascinated by them. 

THEODORE. I do not know, Aristes, whether all that we 
hear just now of certain people is quite accurate, and whether those 
ancient philosophers who have held the opinion which you are 
putting before me have ever really believed it to be true. For 
though there are few extravagances of which men are incapable, I 
would willingly believe that those who produce such chimeras do 
not really believe in them, for, afterall, the author who has renewed 
this impiety agrees that God is the infinitely perfect Being. 
And that being so, how could he have believed that all created 
beings are but parts or modifications of the Divine? Is it a 
perfection to be unjust in one’s parts, unhappy in one’s modifi- 
cations, ignorant, foolish, impious? There are more sinners 
than good people, more idolaters than believers. What disorder, 
what a conflict between the divine Being and its parts! What 
a monstrous, frightful, and ridiculous chimera this is! A God 
of necessity hated, blasphemed, despised, or at least ignored by the 
majority of all beings! For how many people would ever think 
of recognising such a divinity ? A God of necessity, unhappy or 
unfeeling, throughout the greater number of His parts or modi- 
fications, a God who punishes Himself, and avenges Himself upon 
Himself—in a word, an infinitely perfect Being, who is neverthe- 
less composed of all the disorders in the universe! What theory 
can more obviously be declared self-contradictory ? Assuredly, if 
there are people who can make unto themselves a God on the 
basis of so monstrous an idea, then either they do not want 
to see, or they are minds born to look for the properties of 
a triangle in the idea of a circle. Believe me, Aristes, no man of 
good sense has ever been convinced by such a craze, though 
several persons have maintained it as though they were convinced 


228 NINTH DIALOGUE 


by it, for selfslove is so whimsical that it may encourage us to 
confide such views to our boon companions and to appear to be 
convinced of them. But it is impossible to believe it true, 
however little ability one has for argument, and however little 
one has learnt to fear error. Those who maintain this view 
cannot inwardly have been convinced of it unless the corruption 
of their heart has made them so blind that it would be a loss 
of time to attempt the task of enlightening them. Let us 
return to our subject then. 


III. We are; this fact is indisputable. God is infinitely 
perfect. Consequently, we are dependent upon Him. We do not 
exist despite of Him; we exist only because He willed that we 
should have being. But how could God will that we should 
have being, seeing that He has no need of us? How can a 
being who lacks nothing, who is fully self-sufficient, will 
anything ? That is the difficulty. 

ARISTES. It seems to me that this difficulty may be easily 
met, for we need only say that God has created the world, not 
for Himself but for us. 

THEODORE. But what about ourselves, for whom did He 
create us ? 

ARISTES. For Himself. 

THEODORE. The difficulty recurs, for God has no need 
of us. 

ARISTES. Let us say then that God has created us, out of 
nothing but pure kindness, or pure charity towards us. 

THEODORE. Let us not say that, at least not without explana- 
tion, for it seems to me evident that the infinitely perfect Being 
loves Himself infinitely, necessarily, that His will is but the 
love which He bears towards Himself and His divine perfections, 
that the movement of His love cannot, as is the case with our- 
selves, come to Him from the outside, nor consequently lead 
Him outside Himself; and that, being Himself the principle of 
His action, it follows that He alone must be the end or aim of 
that action ; in a word, that in God any love other than self- 
love would be irregular and contrary to the immutable order 
which He contains, and which is the inviolable law of the divine 
volition. Wecan say that God has made us out of pure kindness 
in the sense that He has made us without having need of us. 
But He has made us for Himself, for God can will nothing except 


ON METAPHYSICS _ 229 


by His will, and His will is but the love which He bears towards 
Himself. The reason, the motive, the end of His decrees can 
be found in Himself alone. | 

ArIsTEs. I find some difficulty in yielding to your arguments, 
though they appear to me evident. 

THEOoTIMUS. Do you not see, Aristes, that to look for the 
motives and ends of His actions outside Himself means to 
anthropomorphise God ? But if this thought of yours, of making 
God act solely from pure kindness, attracts you so much, how 
comes it that the number of reprobates is twenty times or a 
hundred times larger than that of the elect ? 

ARISTES. That is due to the Fall. 

THEOTIMUS. Yes; but how is it that God did not prevent 
a Fall fraught with so much sorrow for the creatures whom He 
has made, and made out of pure kindness ? 

ARISTES. He had His reasons. 

THEOTIMUS. God then has within Himself good reasons 
for all that He does, which reasons do not always harmonise 
with a certain idea of kindness and charity which is very pleasant 
for our self-love, but which is contrary to the divine law, to that 
immutable order which contains all the good reasons which 
God may have. 

ARISTES. But, Theotimus, since God is fully self-sufficient, 
why should He adopt the plan of creating this world ? 

THEOTIMUS. God has His reasons, end and motive, all within 
Himself. For, prior to His decrees, what could there have been 
which was capable of determining Him to make them? Since 
God is fully self-sufficient, it was with entire liberty that He 
determined Himself to create the world, for if God wanted His 
creatures, loving Himself irresistibly as He does, he would of 
necessity produce them. Yes, Aristes, all that may be legitimately 
inferred from the self-sufficiency of God is that the world is no 
necessary emanation from the divine Being—which fact faith 
teaches us. But to imagine that the divine abundance can render 
God impotent is to go against an obvious fact, and to deprive 
the Creator of the glory which He derives eternally from His 
creatures. 


IV. AristEs. How so, Theotimus? Has God created the 
world because of the glory which He might derive from it ? 
If this glory had been the motive which determined the Creator, 


230 NINTH DIALOGUE 


we should have a strange thing indeed determining God to act. 
How is it that God should have deprived Himself of this glory 
throughout an eternity? Moreover, you say “glory.’’ What 
do you mean by this word? Assuredly, Theotimus, you have 
ventured upon a path beset with difficulties. 

TuHeEoTIMus. The path is difficult. But Theodore, who has 
followed it successfully, will not leave me entangled in it. 

ARISTES. What, Theodore, God has made the universe for 
His glory! You approve of a thought so anthropomorphic, 
so unworthy of the infinitely perfect Being. Do speak again, 
I beg you, instead of Theotimus. Explain yourself. 

THEODORE. It is at this point, Aristes, that much attention 
and vigilance is necessary in order to avoid the rock you know 
of. Take care lest I strike against it. When an architect has 
constructed a commodious building and one architecturally 
excellent, he experiences a secret satisfaction because his work 
testifies to the skill of his art. Thus one can say that the beauty 
of his work does him honour because it bears the character of 
the qualities which he esteems and loves, and which he is glad 
to possess. If, in addition, someone happens to stop in order 
to contemplate his building and to admire its arrangement and 
its proportions, the architect derives from this a second glory, 
which is still mainly founded on the esteem and love which he 
has for the qualities he possesses, and which he would be glad to 
possess in a more eminent degree; for if he believed that the 
quality of being an architect was unworthy of him, if he despised 
this art or science, his work would cease to be an honour to him, 
and those who praised him for having constructed it would 
merely upset him. 

ARISTES. Take care, Theodore, you are going right against 
the rock. 

THEODORE. All this is merely by way of analogy; follow 
me. It is certain that God loves Himself and all His qualities 
necessarily. Now, it is clear that He cannot act except in 
accordance with what Heis. Therefore His work, since it bears 
the character of His attributes in which He glories, does Him 
honour. Esteeming and loving Himself irresistibly as He does, 
God finds His glory and His satisfaction in a work which in some 
way expresses His excellent qualities. 

This, then, is one of the senses in which God may be said to 
act for the sake of His glory. And, as you will see, the glory Is 


ON METAPHYSICS 281 


not foreign to Him, for it is based upon nothing but the esteem 
and love which He has for His own qualities. Let there exist 
no intelligent spirits to admire His work, let there exist none 
but foolish and stupid men who do not discover its wonders, 
let these, on the contrary, despise this wonderful work, let them 
blaspheme it, let them look upon it because of the monstrosities 
they find therein, as the necessary effect of a blind nature, 
let them be scandalised at seeing innocence oppressed and 
injustice upon the throne ; God will not enjoy less of that glory 
for the sake of which He acts, of that glory which has as its 
principle the love and esteem which He has for His qualities, 
of that glory which ever determines Him to act in accordance 
with what He is, or in a way which bears the character of His 
attributes. Thus, granted that God wills to act, He cannot 
but act for the sake of His glory, in this first sense, since He 
cannot but act in accord with what He is, and through the love 
which He bears towards Himself and His divine perfections. 
But, as. He is self-sufficient, this glory cannot determine Him 
irresistibly to will to act, and I even believe that this glory alone 
cannot be a motive sufficient to make Him act, unless He dis- 
cover also the secret of rendering His work divine, and in har- 
mony with His action which is divine. For, afterall, the universe, 
however grand, however perfect it may be, is still finite, is still 
unworthy of the action of a God whose worth is infinite. God 
will not, therefore, adopt the plan of producing it. That to my 
mind is the greatest difficulty. 

ARISTES. Why, Theodore ? It is easy to solve this difficulty. 
Let us make the world infinite. Let us make it consist of an 
infinite number of vortices ; for why should we imagine a vast 
heaven surrounding all else and beyond which there is nothing ? 

THEODORE. No, Aristes. Let us leave to created things the 
character which is suited for them, let us give them nothing 
which approximates to the divine attributes. But let us en- 
deavour nevertheless to rescue the universe from its profane 
state and to render it by aid of something divine worthy of the 
divine satisfaction, worthy of the action of a God whose worth 
is infinite, 

ARISTES. How can we do this? 

THEODORE. Through union with a divine Personality. 

ARISTES. Ah, Theodore, you always resort to the truths 
of faith to get out of a difficulty. That is not philosophical. 


282 NINTH DIALOGUE 


V. THEODORE. What do you want, Aristes? I doso because 
it is by means of them that I find a way out, and because without 
them I can find no solution for thousands upon thousands of 
difficulties. What then! Is not the universe, sanctified by 
Jesus Christ and subsisting in Him, so to speak, more divine, 
more worthy of the action of God, than all your infinite vortices ? 

ARISTES. Yes, beyond a doubt. But if man had not 
sinned. the Word would not have taken bodily form. 

THEODORE. I know not, Aristes. But even if man had not 
sinned, a divine Person would not on that account have failed to 
conjoin Himself with the universe in order to sanctify it, to rescue 
it from its profane state, to render it divine, to endow it with 
an infinite dignity in order that God, who can act only for the 
sake of His glory, should receive from it a glory which corresponds 
perfectly to His action. Cannot the Word become conjoined 
with God’s work without being incarnate? He made Himself 
aman, but could He not have made Himself an angel? It is 
true that in making Himself a man He conjoined Himself at 
the same time with the two substances, mind and body, of which 
the universe is composed, and through this union He sanctified 
the whole of nature. In view of this consideration I do not 
know whether the Fall was the only cause of the Incarnation of 
the Son of God. For He could have bestowed upon angels the 
grace which He bestowed upon man. Moreover, God foresaw, 
and He permitted the Fall. That is enough, for it proves with 
certainty that the world as saved by Jesus Christ is of greater 
worth than the same universe as at first constructed, otherwise 
God would never have allowed His work to have become corrupted. 
It indicates most certainly that the main design of God was 
the incarnation of His Son. Let us see then, Aristes, in what 
way God acts for the sake of His glory. Let us justify this 
proposition, which has seemed to you so poor and perhaps 
as devoid of sense and untenable. 


VI. In the first place, God thinks of a work which through 
its excellence and beauty should express qualities that He loves 
irresistibly, and which He is glad to have. But this, nevertheless, 
is not sufficient to induce Him to adopt the plan of producing 
it, because a finite and profane world, not having as yet anything 
divine in it, can have no relation to His action which is divine. 
What does He do? He makes it divine by means of union 


ON METAPHYSICS 233 


with a divine Person. And through the union he elevates it 
infinitely and receives from it, mainly in consequence of the 
divinity which He communicates to it, this first glory, which 
is akin to the glory of the architect who has built a house which 
does him honour because it possesses qualities which he is proud 
to possess. God receives, I say, this first glory, illumined, so to 
speak, with an infinite brilliance. Nevertheless, it is from Him- 
self alone that He derives the glory which He receives from 
the sanctification of His Church, or from that spiritual edifice 
of which we are the living stones, sanctified by Jesus Christ. 
In the second place, this Architect receives a second glory 
from the spectators and admirers of His building, and it is perhaps 
through contemplation of this kind of glory that He has en- 
deavoured to make it as magnificent and superb as lay within His 
power. It is also in view of the worship which our sovereign 
Priest was to establish for the honour of God that He resolved 
to make unto Himself a temple wherein He would be eternally 
glorified. Yes, vile and despicable creatures as we are, we 
render, through our divine Head, and shall render eternally, 
divine honours to God, honours worthy of the divine Majesty, 
honours which God received and will always receive with 
pleasure. Our adoration and our praise are to Jesus Christ 
sacrifices of good odour. God takes pleasure in these spiritual 
and divine sacrifices, and if He has repented having estab- 
lished a carnal creed, and having made man,! He has sworn 
by Himself that He will never repent having saved him, 
having sanctified him, having made us all priests under our 
supreme Pontiff, the true Melchisedec.2 God looks upon us in 
Jesus Christ as gods, as His children, as His heirs and 
co-heirs of His well-beloved Son.3 He has adopted us in this 
dear Son, it is through Him that He has given us access to 
His Supreme Maiesty, it is through Him that He feels satisfaction 
in His work, it is through this secret that He has found in His 
wisdom that He goes out of Himself, that He goes, if it be 
permissible to speak thus, out of the sanctity which separates 
Him infinitely from all creatures, that He goes out, I say, with 
a magnificence from which He derives a glory capable of satisfy- 
ing Himself. The Man-God precedes Him always in His ways, and 
justifies all His designs and through His creatures causes honours 
to be paid Him, wherewith He might be content. Jesus Christ 


A Eeb. Vil) 205 325) Vid, 21 Pet. il. 9. 
3 John iii, 1-22; Rom. viii. 16, 17. 


234 NINTH DIALOGUE 


appeared only in the fulness of time, but He existed throughout 
all the generations in the designs of the Creator, and when He 
was born in Bethlehem, then God was glorified, then God was 
satisfied with His work. All blessed spirits recognised this truth 
when the angels announced the birth of the Saviour to the 
shepherds. ‘‘Glory to God,” they said in common accord, “ peace 
on earth, God is well pleased with mankind.’ ! Yes, assuredly, 
the incarnation of the Word is the first and foremost of God’s 
designs, it is that which justifies His action, it is that which, 
unless I am mistaken, is the solution of thousands upon thousands 
of difficulties, of thousands upon thousands of apparent con- 
tradictions.? 

Man, Aristes,is a sinner, he is not such as God has made him. 
God, then, has allowed His work to become corrupt. Harmonise 
this with His wisdon and His power, save yourself from the 
difficulty without the aid of the Man-God, without admitting 
a Mediator, without granting that God has had mainly in view 
the incarnation of His Son. I defy you to do it even with 
the principles of the best philosophy. As for myself, I find myself 
at a loss at every moment, whenever I endeavour to philosophise 
without the aid of faith. It is faith alone that can guide me and 
sustain me in my researches into the truths having any reference 
to God, as the truths of metaphysics have; for so far as mathe- 
matical truths are concerned, which estimate quantities, numbers, 
times, movements, all things that differ merely from the point 
of view of “‘ more or less,’”’ I agree that faith does not help us 
to discover them, and that experience together with reason are 
sufficient for the attainment of knowledge of all the parts of physics. 


VII. AristEs. I fully understand what you are saying, 
Theodore, and I find it quite in conformity with reason. Indeed, 
I rejoice inwardly that in following our faith we are able to 
attain to an understanding of those truths which St. Paul 
teaches us in several parts of his admirable epistles. But two 
minor difficulties suggest themselves to my mind. The first is, 
that it seems that God was not perfectly free in the production 
of His work, since He derives from it a glory which is infinite, 
and which satisfies Him so intensely ; the second is, that at any 
rate He ought not to have deprived Himself for an eternity 

t Luke ii. 14. 

fe Traité de la Nature et de la Grace, Discours i. and Eclaircissements, ii. 
and 111. 


ON METAPHYSICS 235 


of that satisfaction which He has in seeing Himself so divinely 
honoured by His creatures. 

THEODORE. My reply to you is, Aristes, that the infinitely 
perfect Being is fully self-sufficient, and that therefore He loves 
necessarily only His own substance, only His divine perfections. 
That is evident and is sufficient to meet your first difficulty. 
But, as to the second, observe that God is bound never to do 
anything which belies His qualities, and that He is bound to leave 
upon all creatures who are essentially dependent the marks 
of their dependence. Now, the essential character of the de- 
pendent is the fact that it has not always existed. An 
eternal world appears to be a necessary emanation from the 
divine Being. God had to give an indication that He is so 
self-sufficient that throughout an eternity He was able to 
dispense with His work. Through Jesus Christ He derives from 
it a glory which satisfies Him, but He would not receive this 
glory if the incarnation had been eternal, because such an eternal 
incarnation would imply a defect in those attributes which it 
ought to glorify as much as possible. 

ARISTES. I admit, Theodore, that none but a necessary 
and independent Being can be eternal. It is right that all 
that is not God should bear the essential mark of its dependence ; 
that appears to be evident. But God could, without making 
the world eternal, have created it sooner than He has done 
by a thousand millions of centuries.. Why then delay so long 
a work wherefrom He derives so much glory ? 

THEODORE. He did not delay it, Aristes. Soon and late 
are properties of time which have no relation to eternity. If 
the world had been created a thousand million centuries 
before it actually was created, we could still have confronted 
you with the same question, and so repeatedly ad infinitum. 
Thus God did not create the world too late, seeing that an 
eternity had to pass away before it came into existence, and 
that a difference of a thousand million centuries is of no signi- 
ficance when compared with eternity. 

ARISTES. I do not know how to reply to you, Theodore; I 
shall think over what you have just told me, viz. that God acts 
only for the sake of His glory, only for the love which He bears 
towards Himself, for I can see that this principle carries with 
it a number of consequences. But what do you think about 
it, Theotimus ? 


236 NINTH DIALOGUE 


VIII. THEoTiImus. This principle seems to me indisputable, 
for it is evident that the infinitely perfect Being can find in 
nothing but Himself the motive of His volitions and the reasons 
for His action. But I feel that I could wish that God loved 
us a little more, so that He did something solely for His love 
of us, for after all Scripture teaches us that God loved us so 
much that He gave us His only Son. That was a great gift, 
Aristes, and one which seems to me to indicate rather more 
disinterested love than the love which Theodore attributes to 
Him. 

ARIsTES. Well, Theodore, what do you say to that ? 

THEODORE. That Theotimus is striking against the rock, 
or rather that he feels himself in the current which drives him 
thereto, unless perhaps he wishes to see what your opinion is. 

ARISTES. That is not a reply. 

THEODORE. I do not reply because I should very much 
like you to do so; but since you wish to say nothing, at least 
make some effort to understand my meaning. I believe, Aristes, 
that God loved us so much that He has given us His only Son, 
as we are told in Scripture,? but I believe also what the same 
Scripture teaches me, that He loved His Son so much that He 
has given us to Him as well as all the nations of the earth. 
Finally, I believe too, because of what I am taught in Scripture, 
that if He has predestined us to His Son, and if He has chosen 
His Son for the first of His predestined ones, it is because He 
willed to make Him His Pontiff, in order to receive from Him, 
and through Him from us, the adoration which is His due,3 for 
this in a few words is the order of things: All belongs 
to us, we belong to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ belongs 
to God; “things present or things to come,” said St Paul, 
“all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.’’ 4 
That is so because God is necessarily the end of all His 
works. You must distinctly understand, Aristes, that God 
loves all things in proportion as they are worthy of love, that 
the law which He follows inviolably is nothing but the immutable 
order, which I have told you several times can consist in nothing 
but the necessary relations among the divine perfections. In 
a word, you must understand that God acts according to what 
He is, and you will then see without difficulty that He loves us 
so much that He does for us all that He cando. Acting as He is 


1 John iii 16. 2 Ps. ii. 8. 3 Matt. xxviii, 18; Eph.i. 4 1 Cor iii, 22, 23. 


ON METAPHYSICS 237 


bound to act, you will understand that God loves the natures 
that He has made to the extent to which they are as He has 
made them, that He loves them, I say, according to the degree 
of perfection which their archetype possesses, and that He will 
give them happiness in proportion to the rewards they merit 
by conforming to His law. You will understand that at first God 
created man righteous and without fault, and that if He made 
Him free, it was because He willed to make him happy without 
detriment to what he owes to Himself. You will gladly believe 
that God can still love men who have become sinners and 
are therefore deserving of the divine anger with so much charity 
and lovingkindness as to send His Son to deliver them from 
their sins. You will not doubt that God cherishes men, 
sanctified by Jesus Christ, so much that He has given them a 
share of His heritage and of His eternal felicity. But you will 
never understand how God can act solely for the sake of His 
creatures or in an impulse of pure kindness, the motive of which 
His reason does not discover in the divine attributes. Once 
again, God need not act, but if He does act, He cannot but regulate 
Himself in accordance with what He is, in accordance with the 
laws which He finds in His substance. He can love men, 
but only because of the relation in which they stand to Him. 
He finds in the beauty which the archetype of His work 
contains a motive for its realisation, but that is so because 
this beauty does Him honour, because it possesses qualities in 
which He glories, and which He is glad to possess. Thus the 
love which God has for us is not interested in the sense that He 
has need of us, but it is interested in the sense that He loves us 
only by the love which He bears towards Himself, and to His 
Divine perfections, which we give expression to in our nature 
(this is the first glory which all beings of necessity render to 
their author), and which we adore in judgments and actions 
which are their due. This is the second glory which we 
render to God through our sovereign Priest, Our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

THEOoTIMUS. All this, Theodore, seems to me sufficiently 
explained. The infinitely perfect Being is fully self-sufficient ; 
this is one of the names which God gives Himself in Scripture, 
and nevertheless He has made all things for Himself. ‘‘ The 
Lord hath made all things for Himself.’”’! He has made all 


t Prov. xvi. 4. 


288 NINTH DIALOGUE 


things in Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ ‘‘all things 
were created by Him and for Him’’;! all for the glory which 
He deserves from His Church in Jesus Christ; “‘unto Him be 
glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world 
without end.” 2 The Epistles of St. Paul are all full of these 
truths. Therein is the foundation of our religion, and you have 
shown us that there is nothing more in conformity with reason 
and with the most exact notion of the infinitely perfect Being. 
Let us proceed to something else. I hope that when Aristes 
has given this matter full consideration he will become convinced 
of the truth of what I have said. 

ARISTES. I am _ persuaded of the truth of it already, 
Theotimus. It is not my fault that Theodore does not follow 
up the principle in its further applications. 


IX. THEODORE. Let us endeavour, Aristes, to understand 
the more general principles thoroughly. For afterwards the 
rest will follow by itself, all will unfold itself to the mind in 
orderly fashion and with a wonderful clearness. Let us then 
try to discover further from the notion of the infinitely perfect 
Being what God’s designs could be. I do not mean to say that 
we can discover them in detail, but perhaps we may be able to 
recognise the most general of them, and you will see from 
the sequel that the little that we have already discovered will 
be of great use tous. Do you not think, then, that God would 
will to produce the most beautiful and the most perfect 
work possible ? 

ARISTES. Yes, without a doubt, for the more perfect His 
work, the more will it express the qualities and perfections 
in which God glories. This evidently follows from what you 
have just said. 

THEODORE. The universe then is the most perfect that 
God could make? How can that be? Do all these mon- 
strosities, all these disorders, this large number of infidels, 
contribute to the perfection of the universe ? 

ARISTES. You disconcert me, Theodore. God wills to 
produce the most perfect world possible, for the more perfect 
it is the more it will honour Him. This seems to be evident, 
but I see quite well that it would be a more finished production 
if it were free from thousands upon thousands of faults which 

t Col. i. 16. * Eph, ili. 21. 


ON METAPHYSICS 289 


disfigure it. We have here a contradiction which cuts me short. 
It would seem that God did not accomplish His design, or that 
He did not adopt that design, which was most worthy of His 
attributes. 

THEODORE. You think so because you have not yet suffi- 
ciently understood its principles. You have not meditated enough 
upon the notion of the infinitely perfect Being which contains 
these principles. You do not yet understand how to make 
God act in accordance with what He is. 

THEOTIMUS. But, Aristes, mayit not be that the irregularities 
of nature, the monstrosities and even the infidels are as the 
shadow of a picture which give force to the work and relief to 
the figures ? , 

ARISTES. This idea has something in it which pleases the 
imagination, but it does not satisfy the intellect. For I under- 
stand quite clearly that the universe would be more perfect 
if it had nothing irregular in any of the parts which compose 
it, and on the contrary there is hardly any portion of it in which 
there is not some fault. 

THEOTIMUS. Must we hold, then, that God does not will 
His work to be perfect ? 

ARISTES. That cannot be so either, for God cannot desire 
positively and directly irregularities which disfigure His work, 
and which do not express any of the perfections which He 
possesses and in which He glories. This seems to me evident. 
God permits the disorder, but He does not produce it, He does 
not will it. 

THeEotimus. ‘“‘God permits.” I do not understand this 
term. To whom is it that God gives permission to freeze the 
vines and to ruin the harvests which He has caused to 
grow? Why does He permit the admission into His work of 
monstrosities which He does not produce and which He does 
not will? Or is the universe not such as God has willed it to be ? 

ARISTES. No, for the universe is not such as God made it. 

THEOTIMUS. That seems to be true with regard to the disorder 
which has crept into it through the bad use we make of our 
freedom, for God has made no infidels. He only permits men 
to search after Him. I understand this, though I do not know 
the reason of it. But assuredly none but God has produced 
the monstrosities that we find. 

ARISTES. Monsters ars indeed strange creatures, if they 


240 NINTH DIALOGUE 


do not render honour to Him who gave them being. Do you 
know, Theotimus, why God, who to-day covers the whole country 
with flowers and fruit, will ravage it to-morrow with frost and 
hail ? 

THEOTIMUS. Because the country will be more beautiful in 
a barren state than in a fruitful one, though this does not suit 
us. We often judge of the beauty of God’s works by the use 
which we make of them, and we fall into error. 

ARISTES. Still, it is better to judge of them by their utility 
than by their inutility. Beautiful, indeed, is a country 
destroyed by a storm! 

THEOTIMUS. Very beautiful. A country inhabited by sinners 
ought to be in desolation. 

ArIsTEs. If the storm spared the lands of good people, you 
would perhaps be right. Even then it would be more to the 
purpose to refuse rain to the field of a brute than to make his 
wheat spring up and grow, only in order to cut it down by 
a hailstorm. This assuredly would be the shortest road. 
But it is often rather the least guilty who are treated worst. 
What apparent contradictions in God’s action! Theodore has 
already taught me principles by the aid of which these contra- 
dictions can be removed, but I have understood them so badly 
that I no longer remember them. If you do not want to lead 
me into the right path, Theotimus, for I see that you are amusing 
yourself at my expense, allow Theodore to speak. 

THEOTIMUS. That is fair. 


X. THEODORE. You see quite well, Aristes, that it is not 
enough to have half seen these principles, it is necessary to 
master them in order that they should suggest themselves 
to the mind when needed. Listen then, since Theotimus does 
not want to tell you what he knows perfectly well. 

You are not mistaken in believing that the more perfect 
a work is, the more it expresses the perfections of its maker, and 
that the work does Him the greater honour the more the per- 
fections which it expresses please Him who possesses them, 
and that therefore God would desire to make His work as perfect 
as possible. But you have grasped but half of this principle, and 
it is on this account that you are in an awkward position. God 
wills that His work should do Him honour, this you under- 
stand well enough. Yet observe, God does not will that His ways 





. ON METAPHYSICS 241 


should dishonour Him, This is the other half of the principle. 
God wills that His action just like His work should bear 
the character of His attributes. Not content that the universe 
should honour Him by its excellence and beauty, He wills that 
His ways should glorify Him in their simplicity, fruitfulness, 
universality, uniformity, and all the characteristics which express 
qualities in the possession of which He glories. Do not, there- 
fore, imagine that God willed to create the most perfect world 
possible, but merely the most perfect in relation to the ways 
most worthy of Him, for what God wills simply, directly, and 
absolutely in His designs is always to act in as divine a manner 
as possible, to make His procedure as well as His work bear the 
character of His attributes, to act exactly in accordance with 
what He is and with all that Heis. From all eternity God has 
seen all the possible worlds and all the possible ways in which 
each of them could be produced; and, as He acts only for the sake 
of His glory, only in accordance with what He is, He has resolved 
to will that work which could be produced in ways which in con- 
junction with the work should honour Him more than any 
other world produced in any other way. He has formed a plan 
which is to bear, pre-eminently, the character of His attributes, 
which is to express exactly the qualities which He possesses, 
and which He glories in possessing. Grasp this principle firmly, 
my dear Aristes, lest it should escape you, for of all principles 
it is perhaps the most fruitful. 

Furthermore, do not imagine that God ever makes a plan 
blindly, I mean without having compared it with the methods 
or means necessary for its execution. In this way men act who 
are often sorry that they have made certain resolutions because of 
the difficulties which they encounter thereby. To God nothing 
is difficult ; but observe, all things are not equally worthy of 
Him. His ways must bear the character of His attributes no less 
than His work. It follows that God must attend to the ways 
as well as to the work. It is not sufficient that His work should 
honour Him by its excellence ; it is necessary, in addition, that 
His ways should glorify Him by their divinity. And if a world 
more perfect than ours could not be created and maintained 
except by ways which were conversely less perfect, so that the 
expression, so to speak, which this new world and its new ways 
would give to the divine qualities would be less than that 
of our world, I do not fear to say that God is too wise, loves His 

16 





ee ae 


Se Sa 


= 


Se: 


Su oe 
a 


ES Sa ae 


) 





242 NINTH DIALOGUE 


glory too much, acts too exactly in accordance with what He is, 
to be able to give it the preference to the world which He has 
created ; for God is indifferent in His plans only when they are 
equally wise, equally divine, equally glorious, equally worthy 
of His attributes, only when the relation consisting in the beauty 
of the work and the simplicity of the ways is exactlyequal. When 
the relation is not equal, though God may do nothing at all 
because He is self-sufficient, He yet cannot choose and adopt 
the inferior course. He has the power not to act, but He cannot 
act uselessly, nor can He multiply His ways without at the same 
time increasing His glory. His wisdom forbids Him to adopt that 
one out of all the possible designs which is not the wisest. The 
love which He bears towards Himself does not permit Him to 
choose that which does not honour Him most truly. 


XI. ARISTES. I quite grasp your principle, Theodore. 
God acts only in accordance with what He is, only in 
a way which bears the character of His attributes, only for 
the sake of the glory which He finds in the relation which His 
work and His ways jointly have to the perfections which 
He possesses and in the possession of which He glories. It is 
the grandeur of this relation that God considers in framing His 
designs ; for this is the principle: God can act only in accordance 
with what He is, and can will absolutely and directly only for 
the sake of His glory. If the defects of the universe, wherein we 
dwell, diminish this relation, the simplicity, fruitfulness and 
wisdom of its ways and laws which God follows increase it all 
the more. A world more perfect, but produced in ways less 
fruitful and less simple, would not bear to the same extent as 
ours the character of the divine attributes. This is why the 
world is full of infidels, monstrosities, disorder of all kinds. God 
could convert all men, render impossible all disorders; but in 
order to accomplish this He must not disturb the simplicity and 
uniformity of His action, for He is bound to honour it by 
the wisdom of His ways as well as by the perfection of His 
creatures. He does not fermit monstrosities, He makes them. 
But He makes them only in order not to change anything in 
His procedure and only out of respect for the generality of His 
ways, only in order to follow exactly the natural laws which He 
has established and which nevertheless He has not established 
because of the monstrous effects which they are wont to produce, 








ON METAPHYSICS 243 


but for effects more worthy of His wisdom and lovingkindness. 
That is why one can say that He permits them, though none 
but He is responsible for their production. For He wills 
them only indirectly, only because they are a natural conse- 
quence of His laws. | 

THEODORE. How prompt you are in drawing conclusions |! 

ARISTES. I can do so because the principle is clear, because 
it is fruitful. | 

THEODORE. At first it seems, Aristes, that the principle, 
because of its generality, has no solidity. But when followed 
closely, it takes hold of us to such an extent and so promptly by 
the number of astonishing truths which it discloses to us that we 
are charmed with it. Learn from this that the most general 
principles are the most fruitful ones. They appear at first to 
be mere chimeras. Their generality is the cause of this, for the 
mind tends to ignore that which does not touch it. Yet hold 
these principles firmly if you can and follow them; they will 
teach you a good deal in a short time. 

ARIsTES. I shall feel sure of this when I meditate a little upon 
what you have told me, and even now, without any mental 
effort, I see, it seems to me, in one glance, in your principle the 
explanation of a number of difficulties which I have always felt 
regarding the action of God. I see that all those effects which 
contradict one another, those productions which conflict with 
and destroy one another, those disorders which disfigure the 
world,—1 see that all this indicates no contradiction in the cause 
which governs it, no lack of intelligence, no want of power, but 
an astounding fruitfulness and a perfect uniformity in the laws 
of nature. 

THEODORE. Gently, Aristes, for we shall explain all this 
more exactly in the sequel. 


XII. Artistes. I understand even that the reason of the 
predestination of man must be found in your principle. I used 
to believe that God had chosen from all eternity such and such 
beings precisely because He so willed without there being 
any reason for His choice, either on His part or ours, and that 
subsequently He consulted His wisdom as to the means requisite 
for sanctifying them and leading them safely to heaven. But 
I understand now that I was mistaken. God does not make 
‘any plans blindly without comparing them with the means of 


244 NINTH DIALOGUE 


their realisation. He is as wise in the formation of His decrees 
as in their execution. There are reasons for the predestina- 
tion of the elect. These are, namely, that the Church of the 
future formed in the way which God adopts does Him more 
honour than any Church formed in any other way. For God 
can act only for the sake of His glory, only in a way which 
best indicates the character of His attributes. God has not 
predestined us, neither us nor even our divine Head, because 
of our natural deserts, but in virtue of reasons furnished to 
Him by His inviolable law, the immutable order, the necessary 
relations of the perfections which He comprises in His sub- 
stance. He wished to unite His Word with a particular nature 
and to predestine certain people in His Son, because His 
wisdom indicated to Him that He ought to deal with them 
thus for the sake of His own glory. Am I following your great 
principle rightly, Theodore ? 

THEODORE. Quite rightly. But are you not afraid of going 
too far into theology? You are already in the midst of the 
greatest mysteries. 

ARISTES. Let us return, forit is not my business to penetrate 
into these mysteries. 

THEOTIMUS. You do well, Aristes, to return promptly, for 
St. Augustine, the great teacher of grace, wishes us not to look 
for the reasons of the choice which God has made amongst men. 
Predestination is entirely gratuitous, and the reason why God 
takes a certain person and not another is that He shows pity 
to whomsoever He pleases. 

ARISTES. What, Theodore! Does St. Augustine maintain 
that God does not consult His wisdom in the formation of His 
designs, but only in their execution ? 

THEODORE. No, Aristes. But apparently Theotimus is ex- 
plaining St. Augustine after the manner of certain people. 
The learned doctor writing against the heretics of his time is 
rejecting the wicked reason which they gave for God’s choice 
and for the distribution of His grace. Yet he was always 
ready to accept any accounts which were in harmony with 
faith and which did not destroy the free character of God’s grace. 
The argument of the heretics put briefly is this; it is well 
that you should know it and be in a position to refute it. 
God wishes all men to be saved, and to arrive at the knowledge 
of truth. They can, therefore, all be saved through their natural 


ae, ae Te 


"yi 


Aras aT, aie se 


la nae 22 = ae mony 


i + wal 





ON METAPHYSICS 245 


endowments. But if this is not possible, without the aid of 
inner grace, said the more moderate amongst them, let us just 
see to whom God will grant it. God elects some in preference 
to others. Well, agreed; but at least let His choice or election 
be reasonable. Now, it is a commonly accepted notion that 
he who chooses the worse chooses badly. If, therefore, God 
does not grant His grace to all alike, if He makes a selection, 
He must needs prefer the best or less wicked to the more wicked, 
for there can be no doubt that the selection which He makes 
of some rather than others is a wise and reasonable selection. He 
is no respector of persons. It follows necessarily that the reason 
of His choice in the distribution of His grace is to be found in 
the good use which we can still make of our natural endowments. 
It is for us to will, to desire our recovery, to believe in the 
Mediator, to implore His pity—in a word to begin, and God will 
come to our aid. Through the good use that we make of our 
free will we shall merit God’s gift of grace. 

ARISTES. These people argued well. 

THEODORE. Perfectly well, but on the basis of false ideas ; 
they did not consult the notion of the infinitely perfect Being. 
They made God act in the manner in which men act. For, 
observe, why do you think that God sends us rain ? 

ARISTES. To render fruitful the land which we cultivate. 

THEODORE. Then it would only be necessary to sow a plant in 
a field in order that it should rain; for since God does not cause 
rain to fall upon all lands alike, since He makes a choice or 
selection, He is bound to choose reasonably, and to cause rain 
to fall upon lands which are under cultivation rather than upon 
others, rather than upon sands and seas. Find from this com- 
parison the fallacy in the arguments of the enemies of grace. 
But do not quibble, pray. 

ARISTES. I see what you mean, Theodore. Whether the 
earth be cultivated or left sterile, it does not rain more or less 
on that account. Usually it rains only in consequence of the 
general laws of nature, in accordance with which God main- 
tains the universe. In the same way the reason of the 
distribution of grace is not derived from our natural merits. 
God only bestows upon us the first gifts of grace, I mean those 
whereby we are selected, in consequence of certain natural 
laws.t For God does not act as men do, as particular causes 


t Cf. Dialogue XII, Tyraité de la Nature et de la Grace, II, Réponse a la 
Dissertation de M. Arnauld, Chs: VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, etc. 


246 NINTH DIALOGUE 


and limited intellects. The reason of His choice comes from the 
wisdom of His laws, and the wisdom of His laws from the relations 
in which they stand to His attributes, from their simplicity, 
their fruitfulness, their divinity. .The choice which God makes 
of men in the distribution of His grace is thus reasonable and 
perfectly worthy of the wisdom of God, though it is based neither 
upon differences of nature nor upon inequality of merits. 

THEODORE. You have accomplished your task, Aristes. Ina 
few words you have upset the firmest basis of Pelagianism. A 
man who should irrigate the sands or carry into the sea the water 
which is needed for his field would not be wise. This is never- 
theless what God does in consequence of His laws, and in doing 
so He acts very wisely, divinely. This is sufficient to silence 
those arrogant heretics who wish to teach God to make a wise 
and reasonable selection amongst men. 

Well, Theotimus, do you still fear that Aristes will fallinto the 
precipice wherewith St. Augustine frightens, and with reason, those 
who seek in their deserts the cause of their election? Aristes thinks 
that the distribution of grace is purely gratuitous. We can be at 
peace as far as he is concerned. Let us rather pity certain people 
whom we know, who maintain that God chooses His elect out of 
kindness to them, without wisdom and reason on His part; for it 
is a horrible impiety to believe that God is not wise in the for- 
mation of His designs as well as in theirexecution. Predestination 
is gratuitous as far as we areconcerned. Grace is not distributed 
according to our deserts, so St. Augustine maintains, following 
St. Paul and the whole Church ; but it is regulated in accordance 
with a law, from which God never departs. For God has formed 
the design which involves the predestination of certain beings 
rather than that of a number of others, because there is no design 
wiser than this or worthier of His attributes. That is what 
your friends cannot understand. 

THEOTIMUS. What do you expect, Theodore? One naturally 
falls into the trap of judging God by oneself. We all of us love 
independence, and it is a kind of servitude for us to submit to 
reason, a kind of impotence not to be able to do what it forbids. 
Thus we are afraid of making God impotent in order to make 
Him wise, but God is to Himself His own wisdom. The supreme 
wisdom is eternal and consubstantial with Him. He loves it 
necessarily ; and, though He is obliged to follow it, He yet remains 
independent. All that God wills is wise and reasonable; not 


a oe 


a 








ON METAPHYSICS 247 


that God is above reason, not that what He wills is just simply 
and solely because He wills it, but because He cannot belie 
Himself, because He cannot will anything which does not con- 
form to law, to the immutable and necessary order of His divine 
perfections. 

THEODORE. Assuredly, Theotimus, it would mean to upset 
everything to maintain that God is above reason, and that He 
has no other rule in His designs than His will alone. This false 
principle carries with it so profound an obscurity, that it con- 
founds the good with the bad, the true with the erroneous, and 
reduces all things to a chaos wherein the mind can no longer 
know anything. St. Augustine has furnished irrefutable proofs 
of the Fall based upon the disorders which we experience in 
ourselves. Man suffers, therefore he is not innocent. The 
mind depends upon the body, therefore man is corrupt; he 
is no longer such as God has made him; God could not have 
subjected the more to the less noble, because the order of things 
does not permit it. What consequences these are for those who are 
not afraid to say that God’s will is the sole rule of His actions ! 
They can only reply that God has willed it thus; that it is our 
self-love which makes us consider the pain we suffer an injustice ; 
that it is our pride which is injured when it finds that the mind 
is in subjection to the body; that since God has willed these 
alleged disorders, it is an impiety to appeal to reason against 
them, since the will of God does not recognise reason as the guide 
of His action. According to this principle, the universe is 
perfect, since it is the product of God’s will. Monstrosities are 
productions completed just like the others according to God’s 
designs. It is good to have our eyes at the top of our head, but 
they would have been placed elsewhere with equal wisdom 
if God had placed them elsewhere. Let the world be turned 
upside down, let it be turned into a chaos, it will remain for 
ever just as admirable, since its whole beauty consists in its 
conformity to the Divine will, which is not itself obliged to 
conform to order. But, then, this will is unknown to us. It 
follows that all the beauty of the universe disappears if we 
follow this grand principle that God is superior to the reason 
which enlightens all minds, and His will alone is the sole rule of 
His actions. 

ARISTES. Ah, Theodore, how well all your principles are 
linked together! I understand in addition, from what you 


248 NINTH DIALOGUE 


have just said, that it is in God and in an immutable nature that 
we see beauty, truth and justice, since we are not afraid to 
criticise His work, to point out defects therein, and even to con- 
clude that it is corrupt. The immutable order which we see 
in part must be the law of God Himself, written upon His sub- 
stance in eternal and divine characters, since we are not afraid 
to judge His action by the knowledge which we have of this 
law. We lay it down emphatically that man is not such as 
God has made him, that his nature is corrupted, that God could 
not when He created him have subjected his mind to his body. 
Are we impious or fool-hardy to express opinions in this manner 
as to what God ought or ought not to do? Not at all. We 
should, on the contrary, be either impious or blind if we sus- 
pended our judgment on these matters. For we do not judge 
of God on our own authority, but on the supreme authority 
of the divine law. 

THEODORE. That is a reflection, my dear Aristes, worthy 
of you. Do not forget, then, to study this law, since it is 
from this sacred code of the immutable order that such important 
conclusions can be derived. 


a 


SS SS es 


: 
4 
l 








TENTH DIALOGUE 


The magnificence of God in the greatness and infinite number of His different 
works—The simplicity and fecundity of the ways in which He con- 
serves them and develops them—The providence of God in the first 
impression of movement which He communicated to matter—This 
first action, which is not determined by general laws, is regulated 
by an infinite wisdom. 


THEOTIMUS. What do you think, Aristes, of the general prin- 
ciples which Theodore put before us yesterday? Have youalways 
followed them? Has not their generality, sublimity, dis- 
couraged or fatigued you? For my part, I confess this to my 
cost, I wanted to follow them, but they escaped me like phantoms, 
so that I have given myself a great deal of useless trouble. 

ARISTES. When a principle has nothing that can affect the 
senses, it is very difficult to follow it and grasp it firmly. When 
what one seizes has no body, what means are there for main- 
taining a hold over it ? 

THEOTIMUS. Quite naturally it is looked upon as a phantom, 
for the mind being distracted, the principle vanishes, and one 
finds to one’s surprise that nothing is left. We seize the prin- 
ciple once again, but once more it escapes us. And though it 
only escapes us when we close our eyes, as we often do without 
being aware of the fact, we believe that it is the principle which 
has vanished. That is why we look upon it as a phantom 
deluding us. 

ARISTES. That is true, Theotimus; it is, I believe, on this 
account that general principles rather resemble chimeras, and that 
the majority of people, who are not made for the work of atten- 
tion, look upon them as chimerical. 

THEOTIMUS. There is nevertheless a very great difference 
between these two things, for general principles please the mind 
which they enlighten by their clearness, whereas phantoms please 
the. imagination, which indeed is responsible for their being. 


And, although it seems that it is the mind which forms these prin- 
249 


250 TENTH DIALOGUE 


ciples, and generally all truths because they present themselves 
to it in consequence of its attention, I think that you are well 
aware that they are given to us, and that they do not derive 
their reality from the efficacy of our own action, for all immut- 
able truths are but relations subsisting between ideas, the 
existence of which is necessary and eternal. But the phantoms 
which the imagination produces, or which are produced in the 
imagination as a natural result of the general laws of the con- 
junction of soul and body, exist only for a time. 

ARISTES. I believe, Theotimus, that nothing is more solid 
than truth, and that the more general truths are, the more reality 
and light they possess. Theodore has convinced me of this. 
But I am so sensuous and gross that often I find no attraction 
in them, and Iam sometimes tempted to abandon them altogether. 

THEOTIMUS. You hear this, Theodore ? 

THEODORE. You will do nothing of the kind, Aristes; truth 
is of greater worth than onions and cabbages. It is an excellent 
manna. 

ARISTES. Quite excellent, I admit, but it sometimes appears 
empty and of little solidity. It is not very much to my taste ; 
and you want us to gather from it afresh day after day. That 
is not too pleasant. 

THEODORE. Well, Aristes, let us pass this day in the manne 
in which the Jews do their Sabbath. Perhaps you did sufficient 
work yesterday for two days. 

Artistes. Assuredly, Theodore, I worked a good deal, but I 
gained nothing. 

THEODORE. Nevertheless, I left you quite busy drawing 
conclusions. At the rate you were going on you ought to have 
your two measures full of conclusions. 

ARISTES. What measures? Two gomers?! Give to your 
principles more body if you wish me to fill these measures ; make 
them more tangible and palpable. They slip through my fingers ; 
the slightest heat dissolves them, and after a good deal of work 
I find that I have nothing. 

THEODORE. You are benefiting, Aristes, without noticing the 
fact. These principles which pass through the mind and yet 
escape it always leave some vestige of light. 

ARISTES. That is true. I know it quite well. But must I | 
begin anew every day and leave behind my usual food? Could 


¢ Gomer or Omer, a Hebrew measure of capacity.—Tr. 





a 


eee pa 








ON METAPHYSICS 251 


you not make the principles of your philosophy more accessible 
to the senses ? 

THEODORE. Iam afraid, Aristes, that in doing so they would 
become less intelligible. Believe me, I always make them as 
tangible as possible. But I am afraid of corrupting them. It is 
allowable to corporealise truth, in order to adapt it to our natural 
weakness, and to sustain the attention of the mind which cannot 
get agrip of that whichhas no body. Yet it is necessary that the 
sensible should lead us to the intelligible, that the flesh should lead 
us to reason, and that the truth should appear as it really is with- 
out disguise. The information furnished by the senses is not 
solid. Only the intelligible can through its evidence and light 
supply food for intelligent minds. You know that is so. Try 
to remember it and follow me. 

ARISTES. Of what do you wish to speak ? 


I. THEODORE. Of Providence in general, or of the ordinary 
course of action which God adopts in the government of the 
world. You have seen, Aristes, and perhaps even forgotten, that 
the infinitely perfect Being, though self-sufficient, was able to 
adopt the design of forming this universe ; that He created it for 
Himself for the sake of His own glory ; that He has put Jesus 
Christ at the head of His work, at the beginning of His designs 
and ways, in order that all should be divine ; that He could not 
undertake the most perfect world possible, but only the most 
perfect that could be produced in the wisest and most divine 
ways; so that any other work produced in any other way could 
not express more exactly the perfections which God possesses and 
in the possession of which He glories. Hence the Creator is, so to 
speak, ready to come out of Himself, out of His eternal sanctuary, 
ready to take the field by the production of creatures. Let us see 
something of His magnificence in His work; but let us follow Him 
closely in the majestic steps of His ordinary action. As to His 
magnificence in His work, it shines forth from allsides. In what- 
ever direction we may turn our eyes, we see a profusion of wonders. 


-And if we cease to admire them it is because we cease to look 


upon them with the attention they deserve, for the astronomers 
who measure the magnitude of the planets, and who are eager 
to know the number of the stars, are the more struck with ad- 
miration the more they come to know about them. At one 
time the sun appeared to them as great as the Peleponesus, 


252 TENTH DIALOGUE 


but to-day the more expert among them think it a million times 
larger than the earth. The ancients counted only a thousand and 
twenty-two stars, but to-day no one dares to count them. God 
indeed has told us that no man can ever number them! The 
invention of telescopes compels us, however, to recognise that the 
catalogues which we have of them are very imperfect. They 
contain only those which can be discovered by the naked eye, that 
is, of course, the smallest number. I believe even that there are 
more than one will ever be able to render visible even by the aid 
of the best telescopes, and meanwhile there is good ground for 
believing that a very large proportion of these stars yield neither 
in grandeur nor majesty to the vast body which to us on earth 
appears the most luminous and most beautiful. How great then 
God is in the heavens, how sublime in their depths, how mag- 
nificent in their brilliance! how wise and powerful in the 
regulation of their movements ! | 


II. But, Aristes, let us leave the sublime. Our imagination 
fails us in those immense spaces to which we dare not ascribe 
limits, which yet we are afraid to leave without boundaries. 
How great is the number of wonderful works upon the earth 
which we inhabit,—upon this spot which is imperceptible to them 
who measure only the celestial bodies! But this earth, which 
our friends the astronomers think so little of, is still too vast 
for me; I shut myselfup in your park. What flowers and fruit ! 
The other day I was lying in the shade, and it occurred to me 
to note the variety of herbs and small animals which I found 
under my eyes. Without moving from my place, I counted 
more than twenty kinds of insects in a very small space, and 
at least as many different plants. I took hold of one of the 
insects, the name of which I do not know, perhaps indeed it 
had none; for the men who give diverse names, and often too 
magnificent ones, to everything that comes from their hands 
believe that they need not name those works of the Creator 
which they have not learnt to admire. I took hold, I say, of 
one of these insects, I examined it closely, and I do not hesitate 
to say of it, what Jesus Christ said of the lilies of the field, that 
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these. After 
having admired for some time this little creature, which is so 
unjustly despised, and indeed so unworthily and cruelly treated 
by the other animals to whom apparently it serves as food, I 





; 
4 
; 
i 
; 


Se te 


ae 


a eT 


eee 


SF Ia Re are RP 





ee ND 


Pet a ee 





ON METAPHYSICS 253 


began to read a book which I had with me, and I found therein a 
very astounding thing, namely, that there is in the world an infinite 
number of insects at least a million times smaller than the one 
I had just been examining, fifty thousand times smaller than 
a grain of sand. 

Do you know, Aristes, what a “‘toise’’is ? I mean the standard 
of measurement employed by people who wish to indicate the 
smallness or, if you wish, the largeness of these living atoms ; 
for though they are small in relation to us, they do not on that 
account cease to be large as compared with others. The standard 
I refer to is the diameter of the eye of these small domestic animals 
which have annoyed men so much that they have been forced 
to honour them with a name. It is by aid of this standard, 
but reduced to feet and inches, for, taken as a whole, it is too big, 
it is, I say, by aid of the parts of this new standard, that these 
observers of the curiosities of nature measure the insects which 
are found in liquids, and of which they prove, by means of geo- 
metrical principles, that an infinite number can be found which 
are a thousand times smaller at least than the eye of an ordinary 
louse. Let not this standard shock you, it is one of the most 
exact and most common. This little animal has made itself 
sufficiently well known, and so can be found at all seasons. 
These philosophers are very glad that the facts they put before 
us can be verified at any time, and that people are able to appre- 
ciate with certainty the multiplicity and delicacy of the wonderful 
works of the author of the universe. 

ARISTES. This rather surprises me; but pray tell me, Theodore, 
are those animals which are imperceptible to the eye and almost 
like atoms even under good microscopes the smallest? May there 
not be many others which will for ever escape the ingenuity 
of men? Perhaps the smallest which have as yet been seen 
are to those which never will be seen as the elephant to the gnat. 
What do you think of that ? 

THEODORE. We are lost, Aristes, in the realm of the small, 
just as we are in that of the great. There is no one who can 
claim to have discovered the smallest animal. At one time 
this was taken to be the midge, but to-day the little midge 
has become prodigious in its size. The more our microscopes 
are perfected, the more convinced do we become that the small- 
ness of matter imposes no limit upon the wisdom of the Creator, 

t Lettre de M. Leeuwenhoeck a M. Wren. 


254 TENTH DIALOGUE 


that out of nothing, so to speak, out of an atom which is not 
accessible to our senses, He produces works which transcend 
our imagination, and which are beyond even the vastest intellect. 
I am going to explain this to you. 


III. When one is quite convinced, Aristes, that this variety 
and this succession of beautiful things which adorn the universe 
is but a consequence of the general laws of the communication 
of motion, which can all be reduced to the simple and natural 
law, that bodies in motion, or when impelled, move always in 
the direction of least resistance, and that they will always move 
with the velocity which is reciprocally proportional to their 
masses, provided the energy remains unaltered; when, I say, 
one is convinced that all the figures and modifications of matter 
have no other cause than movement, that all communication of 
motion takes place according to a law, so natural and simple that 
it seems as though nature acted only out of a blind impetuosity, 
one understands clearly that it is not the earth which produces 
plants, and that it is not possible that the union of the two sexes 
should produce a work so wonderful as the body of an animal. 
One can very well believe that the general laws of the com- 
munication of motion are sufficient to develop and cause the 
growth of organic bodies, but one can never persuade oneself 
that they could produce so complicated a machine. We see quite 
well, that, if we do not wish to have recourse to an extraordinary 
Providence, we are bound to believe that the germ of a plant 
contains in miniature the plant which it engenders, and that the 
animal contains in its organs the creature that will come out 
of it. We understand even that it is necessary that every seed 
should contain the whole species which it can produce, that every 
grain of corn, for example, contains in miniature the ear which it 
will eventually produce, every grain of which in its turn contains 
its ear, all the grains of which again can always be just as fruitful 
as those of the first ear. Assuredly, it is not possible that the 
bare laws of motion could adjust to one another and in relation 
to certain ends an almost infinite number of organic parts which 
constitute what is called an animal or plant. It is much, 
that these simple and general laws should suffice to cause the 
silent growth and the appearance in their due time of all these 
wonderful works of God formed in the first days of the creation 
of the world. Not that the small animal or the germ of the 











ON METAPHYSICS 255 


plant has between all its parts precisely the same proportion of 
size andsolidity and figure as the animals and plants; but that all 
the parts which are essential for the mechanism of animals and 
plants are so wisely arranged in their germs that in the course 
of time and in consequence of the general laws of motion they 
are bound to assume the figure and form which we observe in 
them. Grant this: 


IV. And reflect, Aristes, that a fly has as many organic parts 
as, or perhaps more than, a horse or an ox. A horse has but 
four feet, a fly has six, and in addition it has wings of a wonderful 
structure. You know how the head of an ox is formed. Look 
then one day at the head of a fly through the microscope and 
compare the one with the other; you will see quite well that I 
am not imposing upon you. Remember once more that a cow 
yields but two calves a year, and that a fly yields a swarm con- 
taining more than a thousand flies; for the smaller animals are 
the more prolific they are. And you are aware, perhaps, that at 
present bees have no longer a king that they honour, but only 
a queen that they make much of, and that alone produces an 
entire swarm. ‘Try, then, to imagine the amazing smallness, 
the wonderful delicacy of all the bees, and of the thousands 
of organised bodies which the mother bee carries within its 
ovary. And although your imagination staggers at the thought, 
do not think that a fly is made out of a grub without being con- 
tained therein, nor the grub out of an egg, for that is inconceivable. 

ARISTES. Since matter is infinitely divisible, I understand 
quite well that God could make in the realm of the small all 
that we see in that of the great. I have heard that a Dutch 
scientist 7 has discovered a method enabling one to see in the 
chrysalis of a caterpillar the butterflies which are to come out 
ofit. I have often seen in the middle of winter bulbs containing 
entire tulips with all the parts which they have in the spring, 
Thus I am quite willing to grant that all seeds contain a plant 
and all eggs an animal similar to that out of which they came. 


V. THEODORE. You have not got far as yet. It is about 
six thousand years since the world was made, and bees have 
been producing swarms. Let us suppose that these swarms 


: According to M. Swammerdam, one bee produces about four thousand. 
2 Swammerdam, Histoire des Insectes. 


256 TENTH DIALOGUE 


are each a thousand in number. The first bee must, therefore, 
have been a thousand times larger than the second, and the second 
a thousand times larger than the third, and the third a thousand 
times larger than the fourth, and so on, diminishing regularly 
down to asix-thousandth, in the progression of a thousand to one. 
That is clear from our hypothesis, since that which contains 
is larger than that which is contained. Realise, then, if you 
can the wonderfully delicate structure which contained, in the 
first bee, all those of the year 1687. 

ARISTES. That is quite easy. One need only find the exact 
values of the last term of a progression, whose common ratio 
is a thousandth carried to six thousand terms, and the first of 
which stands for the value of the natural size of a honey-bee. 
The bees of this year were in the beginning of the world a thousand 
times smaller, nay, Theodore, five thousand nine hundred and 
ninety-seven thousand times smaller. That is their exact size 
if we grant your assumptions. 

THEODORE. I understand you, Aristes. In order to express 
the relation between the natural size of the bee and the size 
which the bees of 1687 had in the beginning of the world, granting 
that it is six thousand years since they were created, it is only 
necessary to write down a fraction, having unity for its numerator 
and unity also for denominator, but only accompanied by 
eighteen thousand ciphers. What a nice fraction! But are you 
not afraid that a unity broken up and shattered so much will 
fade away, and that your bee will come to resemble nothing at all ? 

ARISTES. No, not at all, Theodore. For I know that matter 
is infinitely divisible, and small and great are purely relative 
terms. I see without difficulty, though my imagination shrinks 
therefrom, that since what we call an atom can be divided 
indefinitely, any part of extension is in a sense infinitely great, 
and that God can do in the realm of the small all that we see in 
that of the great in the world which we wonder at. Yes, the 
smallness of bodies can never arrest the divine power; I can see 
this clearly, for geometry teaches us that there is no unity in 
extension, and that matter can be eternally divided. 

THEODORE. That is all right, Aristes. You can see, then, 
that if the world has endured several thousands of centuries, 
God was able to preform within a single bee all those bees which 
were to come out of it, and to adjust the simple laws of the 
communication of movement in such a wise manner to the 


ON METAPHYSICS 257 


design which He had of making them increase insensibly and of 
producing them each year that their species could never die out. 
What structures of wonderful delicacy are hidden in so small 
a portion of space as is filled by the body of a single bee! For 
without prophesying about the uncertain duration of the world, 
it is about six thousand years since bees have been putting forth 
their swarms. How many bees, then, do you think did the first 
bee which God created, assuming that He only created one, carry 
within its ovary, in order to be able to supply bees up to the 
present time ? 

ARISTES. That can be easily calculated, certain assumptions 
being made. How many females, do you think, does each mother- 
bee yield in each swarm? There is only this and the number 
of years to be determined. 

THEODORE. Do not linger over this calculation. It is too 
easy! But apply, in due proportion, what you have just found 
in reference to bees to an almost infinite number of other animals. 
Judge by means of it of the number and the delicacy of the plants 
which existed in miniature in the first plants, and which every 
year unfold themselves in order to reveal themselves to mankind. 


VI. THEoTIMus. Let usleave all these speculations, Theodore. 
God supplies us with an abundance of works at our very doors 
without our having to go to those which we cannot see. There 
is not an animal or plant which does not sufficiently indicate 
by its wonderful construction that the wisdom of the Creator 
is infinitely beyond our comprehension. And He produces them 
year by year with such profusion that His magnificence and 
grandeur ought to impress and astonish the most stupid of men. 
Without going beyond ourselves, we find in our own bodies 
a machine made up of a thousand springs, and all so wisely 
adjusted to their end, so well connected with and subordinated 
to one another, that this alone is sufficient to humble us and 
prostrate us before the author of our being. I have not long 
since read a book about the movements of animals which deserves 
consideration.t The author examines with care the plan of the 
machine which is necessary for locomotion. He explains in an 
exact manner the strength of the muscles, and the reasons for 
their various positions—all according to the principles of geometry 
and mechanics. But, although he only deals with what is most 

t Borelli, De Motu Animalium. 
17 


258 TENTH DIALOGUE 


easily discovered in the animal mechanism, he makes us recognise 
so much skill and wisdom in Him who made it that he fills the 
mind of the reader with admiration and surprise. 

ARISTES. It is true, Theotimus, that the anatomy of the 
human body alone, or of the most despised of animals, gives so 
much light to the mind and strikes it so vividly that one must 
be senseless not to recognise its author. 


VII. THEODORE. You are both nght. But as for me, what 
I find most wonderful is the fact that God forms all these 
excellent works, or at least makes them grow and develop 
before our eyes, by following exactly certain general, simple and 
very fertile laws, which He has prescribed to Himself. I do 
not admire the trees covered with fruits and flowers so much as 
their marvellous growth in consequence of natural. laws. A 
gardener takes an old rope, rubs it with a fig, and buries it in 
a furrow, and some time afterwards I see that all those little 
seeds which we feel in our teeth when we eat figs have pierced 
the earth, and have pushed forth on one side roots and on another 
a nursery of fig-trees. That is what I wonder at. To irrigate 
the fields in consequence of natural laws and with a little water 
to cause entire forests to spring forth from the earth; an animal 
to conjoin itself. brutishly and mechanically with another, and 
thereby to perpetuate its species ; a fish to follow its female and 
to fertilise the eggs which she loses in the water; a field ravaged 
by hail to be in a short time rejuvenated, covered with plants 
and the usual wealth; by aid of the wind to transport grains 
from distant countnes and through the rain to spread them over 
those which have been desolated—all these are an infinity of 
effects produced by the simple and natural law that all bodies 
should move in the direction of least resistance, and that assuredly 
is something one cannot sufficiently admire. Nothing is more 
beautiful, nothing more magnificent in the universe than this 
profusion of animals and plants such as we have recognised. 
But, believe me, nothing is more divine than the way in which 
God fills the world, than the use which God knows how to make 
of a law which is so simple that it seems to be good for nothing. 

ARISTES. JI am of your opinion, Theodore. Let us leave it 
to the astronomers to measure the magnitude and the motions 
of the stars for the purpose of predicting eclipses. Let us leave 
it to anatomists to dissect the bodies of animals and plants so 


ON METAPHYSICS 259 


as to find out the mechanism and the relations of the parts. 
In a word, let us leave it to the natural philosophers to study 
the detail of nature, in order to admire all its marvels. Let us 
deal mainly with the general truths of your metaphysics. We 
have, it seems to me, sufficiently discovered the magnificence 
of the Creator in the infinite multiplicity of His marvellous works. 
Let us follow Him a little in the measures which He adopts in the 
course of His procedure. 


VIII. THEODORE. You will admire much more than you 
do all the parts of the universe, or rather the infinite wisdom 
of its author, when you will have considered the general laws 
of Providence. For when one examines the work of God without 
any regard to the ways of its construction and maintenance, 
what a number of defects stare us in the face, and often disturb 
the minds even of philosophers so much that they look upon 
this wonderful work either as the necessary effect of a blind 
nature or as a monstrous mixture of good and bad creations, 
which owe their being to a good and an evil God respectively. But 
when one compares it with the ways in which God must govern it, 
in order to make His action bear the character of His attributes, 
all these defects which disfigure the creation do not fall to the 
account of the Creator, for if there are any defects in His work, 
if there are monstrosities and thousands upon thousands of dis- 
orders, nothing is more certain than that there are none in His 
course of action. You have already seen that this is the case, 
but I must try to make you understand it better. 


IX. Do you still remember what I have demonstrated to 
you! that there is a contradiction in supposing that a created 
thing can move a bit of straw by its own efficacy ? 

ARISTES. Yes, Theodore. I remember your demonstration 
quite well and am convinced of its truth. The Creator of matter 
alone can be its mover. 

THEODORE. The Creator alone, therefore, can effect any 
change in the material world, since all the possible modifications 
of matter consist but in the sensible or insensible figures of its 
parts, and all these figures have no other causes than motion. 

ARISTES. I do not quite understand what you are saying now. 
I suspect a surprise. 
THEODORE, I have proved to you,? Anistes, that matter and 
t Dialogue VII. a Dialogues I, 2; III, 11, 12. 


260 TENTH DIALOGUE 


extension are one and the same; remember this. It is upon 
this assumption, or rather upon this truth, that I base my argu- 
ment, for nothing but extension is necessary for the production 
of a material world, or at least of a world quite similar to the 
one we inhabit. If you do not agree with me so far, it will 
be of no avail to proceed. 

ARISTES. I remember quite well that you have proved to 
me that extension is a being or substance and not a modifi- 
cation of substance, for the reason that we can think of it with- 
out thinking of any other thing. For, in truth, it is evident 
that whatever can be thought of in itself is not a mode of being 
but a being or substance. In this way alone can substances 
be distinguished from their modifications. I am convinced of 
this. But may not matter be a substance other than extension ? 
This idea keeps on recurring to my mind. 

THEODORE. The terms are different, but not the things in- 
dicated by them, providing that by matter you understand that 
whereof the world which we inhabit is composed. For assuredly 
it is composed of extension, and I do not take you to be maintain- 
ing that it is composed of two substances. One of them would 
be useless, and I think that this would be yours, for I do not see 
how anything solid could be made out of it. How could one, 
Aristes, make a writing-desk, or chairs, or any furniture out of 
your matter? Such furniture would be rare and precious indeed. 
But give me extension, and there is nothing which I could not 
make out of it by the aid of motion. 

ARISTES. That is just the point that I do not understand so 
well. 


X. THEODORE. Nevertheless, it is quite easy, provided we 
judge of things by the ideas which represent them, and are not 
misled by the prejudices of the senses. Think, Aristes, of an in- 
definite extension. If between all the parts of this extension there 
subsisted the same relation of distance, we should have nothing 
but a huge mass of matter. But if any motion enters into it, 
and its parts keep on ceaselessly changing position in relation 
to one another, an infinity of forms is introduced, I mean an 
infinity of figures and configurations. By figure I understand 
the form of a body sufficiently large to make itself perceptible, 
by configuration the figure of the insensible particles of which 
large bodies are made up. 


ON METAPHYSICS 261 


ARISTES. Yes, we get thus all sorts of figures and configura- 
tions. Yet still we do not perhaps get in this way all the differ- 
ent bodies which we see. The bodies you make out of your 
extension alone differ only accidentally ; but most of the bodies 
that we see differ perhaps essentially. Earth is not water, a 
stone is not bread. But it seems to me that out of your extension 
alone you could only make bodies of the same kind. 

THEODORE. The prejudices of the senses confuse you once 
more, Aristes. Astone is not bread, that istrue. But pray tell me, 
is flourcorn? Is bread flour? Our blood, flesh, bones, are they 
bread or grass? Are these bodies of the same or different species ? 

ARISTES. Why do you ask me this? Who does not see that 
bread, flesh, bones, are essentially different bodies ? 

THEODORE. It is out of corn that one makes flour, out of 
flour bread, and out of bread flesh and bones. Throughout 
it is the same matter. If, despite all this, you think that all 
these bodies differ in kind, why do you not think that out of the 
same extension bodies essentially different could be produced ? 

ARISTES. Because your figures and configurations are acci- 
dental to matter and do not change its nature. 

THEODORE. It is true, matter remains ever the same 
whatever figure be given to it; but it may be said that a round 
body is different in kind from a square one. 

ARISTES. What! If I take some wax and change its figure, 
will it not remain the same wax ? 

THEODORE. It will be the same wax, the same matter; but 
one might say it will not be the same body, for assuredly what is 
round is not square. Let us have done with equivocations. For 
a round body it is essential that all the parts of its surface should 
be equally distant from the part constituting its centre, but 
it is not essential that its inner or insensible particles should 
have any given configuration ; in the same way it is essential for 
the wax that the small particles of which it is composed should 
have a certain configuration, but it is not changed whatever 
figure one gives to its mass. Finally, it is essential for matter 
to be extended, but it is not essential for it either to have any 
particular figure in its mass, or any particular configuration 
in the insensible particles of which it is composed. Observe, 
then, what happens to the corn when it passes through the 
mill ? What happens to the flour when it has been ground and 
baked ? It is clear that a change has taken place in the positions 


262 TENTH DIALOGUE 


and configurations of the insensible particles, as well as in the 
figure of the mass as a whole; and I cannot see how there 
could come about a change which was more essential. 


XI. ARISTES. It is maintained, Theodore, that over and 
above this change there supervenes a substantial form. 

THEODORE. I am well aware that that is what is maintained. 
But I cannot see anything that is more accidental to matter 
than this chimera! What change can it bring about in the 
corn which one grinds ? 

ARISTES. Merely the change which causes it to become flour. 

THEODORE. What! Cannot corn which has been well ground 
be reduced to flour without that ? 

ARISTES. It may be perhaps that flour and corn do not differ 
essentially. They are perhaps two bodies of the same kind. 

THEODORE. And flour and dough, are they also the same 
kind? Observe then! Dough is nothing but flour and water 
well mixed together. Do you think that one could not make dough 
by thorough kneading without the aid of a substantial form ? 

ARISTES. Yes; but without such form bread cannot be made. 

THEODORE. A substantial form, then, it is which transforms 
the dough into bread. Let us see. When is it that the form 
is added to the dough ? 

ARISTES. When the bread is baked, well baked. 

THEODORE. That is so; for doughy bread is not, strictly 
speaking, bread. The latter has as yet no other substantial 
form than that of corn or of flour or dough; for these three 
bodies are of the same kind or species. But if the substantial 
form failed to supervene, would well-baked dough not be bread ? 
Now, it does not receive this form until the dough is baked. 
Let us try then to eliminate it. After all it is very difficult 
to seize it on account of the potency of its matter! One does 
not know how to set about it. 

ARISTES. I see quite well, Theodore, that you want to amuse 
yourself; but let it not be at my expense, for I assure you I have 
always looked upon these assumed forms as figments of the 
human imagination. Tell me, rather, how it is that so many 
people have come to believe in this doctrine. 

THEODORE. Because the senses lead us to such a view quite 
naturally. As we experience essentially different sensations on 
the presence of sensible objects, we are induced to believe that 


ON METAPHYSICS 263 


these objects differ in essence. And this is true in a sense; for 
the configuration of the invisible particles of wax are essentially 
different from those of water. But as we do not see these small 
particles, their configuration, their difference from one another, 
we conclude that the masses which they constitute are substances 
of different kinds. Now, experience teaches us that in all bodies 
there is a common substratum, since they can be produced out 
of one another. We conclude, therefore, that there is something 
which is responsible for their specific difference; and it is this 
characteristic which we attribute to the substantial form. 


XII. Artistes, I see, Theodore, quite well that the great 
principle which you proved to me long ago in our previous 
talks! is indeed necessary, namely, that we must not judge 
of the nature of bodies by the sensations which they excite in us, 
but only by the idea which represents them, and in accordance 
with which they have been formed. Our senses are false witnesses, 
to which we must not listen except as compelled by facts. 
They give us but confused information as to the relation sub- 
sisting between the bodies of our environment and our own, 
sufficient indeed for the preservation of life, but having nothing 
accurate in their testimony. Let us always follow this principle. 

THEODORE. Let us follow it, Aristes, and comprehend that 
all the modifications of extension are and can only be modifi- 
cations of figures, configurations, movements, whether sensible or 
not—in a word, nothing but relations of distance. An indefinite 
extension without movement, without change in the relation 
of distance between its parts, would be nothing but a huge mass 
of unformed matter. Let motion be introduced into this mass, 
and move its particles in an infinite number of ways, and we have 
an infinite number of different bodies, For observe, it is impossible 
that all the parts of this extension should change their relations 
of distance in an equal manner with regard to all the other parts ; 
it is on this account that we can understand how the parts 
of extension move, and that we can discover therein an infinity 
of different figures or bodies. Since your head, for example 
persists as it does in the same relation of distance to your 
neck and the other parts of your body, all these make up but 
one body. But as the particles of the air surrounding you move 
in different ways upon your face and upon the remainder of your 

1 Dialogues III, IV, V. 


264 TENTH DIALOGUE »- 


organism, this air is not one with your body. Consider each 
particle of the fibres in your body and remember that the relation 
of distance which subsists between any determinate particle and 
any given neighbouring particle does not change at all or but little, 
and that the relation of distance subsisting between it and a 
number of certain of its other neighbouring particles keeps on 
changing incessantly, and you will thus construct an infinity of 
small channels in which the humours circulate. Any given particle 
of the fibres of your hand does not move away from another neigh- 
bouring particle of the same fibres, but it ceaselessly changes its 
position in relation to the animal spirits, the blood, the humours, 
and the infinite number of small bodies which come into touch 
with it in passing, and which continually escape through the pores 
which the intertwining of our fibres leavesin the flesh. It is this 
which makes any given part precisely what itis. Consider then all 
the particles of which such fibre is composed. Compare them with 
one another and with the fluid humours of your body, and you will 
see without any difficulty what I wish to make you comprehend. 

ARISTES. I follow you, Theodore. Assuredly nothing is 
clearer than that all the possible modifications of extension are 
only relations of distance, and that it is only through the 
variety of motion and rest of the particles of matter that this 
variety of different figures and bodies is brought about which 
we admire in the world. When one judges of objects by the 
sensations which one has of them, one finds oneself strangely em- 
barrassed at every moment, for one often has essentially different 
sensations of the same object and similar sensations of quite 
different objects. The testimony of the senses is always obscure 
and confused. It is necessary to judge of all things by the ideas 
which represent their nature. If I consult my senses, snow, hail, 
rain, vapour are bodies differing in kind. But by consulting the 
clear and luminous idea of extension I see quite well, it seems to 
me, that a little motion can reduce ice to water, and even to 
vapour, without changing the configurations of the small particles 
of which these bodies are composed. I see even that by changing 
their configuration there is nothing that could not be made out 
of them, for since bodies differ essentially only in the size, con- 
figuration, motion, and rest, of the insensible particles of which 
their masses are composed, it is evident that in order to make 
gold, for example, out of lead, or whatever else you please, it is 
necessary only to divide or rather to join the small particles of the 


ON METAPHYSICS 265 


lead and to give them the size and configuration essential to the 
small particles of gold, or which cause a given matter to be gold. 
This can be seen without difficulty. Yet I believe, nevertheless, 
that those who look for the philosopher’s stone will sooner reduce 
their gold to ashes or smoke than make any new gold. 

THEODORE. That is true, Aristes, for who knows the size and 
configuration of the small particles of this choice metal? And 
assume this to be known, who can tell the configuration of the 
small parts of lead or quicksilver? But let us even assume that 
instead of working blindly and at haphazard, they know that these 
particles of quicksilver, combined in a certain way, will produce 
exactly one of those small particles of which gold is made up: I defy 
them to combine these particles so accurately as to produce even 
one particle resembling those of gold. Assuredly the subtle matter 
which finds its way everywhere will prevent them from combining 
them accurately. They may perhaps fix the mercury, but so 
badly, so imperfectly, that it will not feel the fire without evapor- 
ating into vapour. Let them even succeed in fixing it in sucha 
way as to render experimentation possible, what will itendin ? A 
new metal, more beautiful than gold I grant, but perhaps looked 
down upon. The particles of the quicksilver will be combined in the 
proportion of 4 to 4,5 to 5, 6 to 6, but unfortunately it was neces- 
sary that they should be in the proportion of 3 to 3. They will 
be combined in one way instead of in another. <A vacuum will 
be left between them which will cause its weight to decrease, 
and which will give it a colour which will be disliked. Bodies, 
Aristes, can easily be transformed into others when it is not 
necessary that the configuration of theirinsensible particles should 
be changed. Vapours are easily transformed into rain, because 
for this purpose it is sufficient that they should diminish their 
motion, and that several of them should be joined together im- 
perfectly. And for a similar reason only a cold wind is necessary 
to harden rain into hail. Yet in order to change water into any 
of those things which are needful for plants, it is necessary to have 
in addition to motion, without which nothing can be done, moulds 
made expressly for fixing in a certain way this fluid matter. 

THEOTIMUS. Well now, Theodore, why do you linger over 
this point? You wanted to speak of Providence, and you 
embark upon questions of physics. 

THEODORE. I thank you, Theotimus. Perhaps I was wander- 
ing from the point. Nevertheless, it seems to me that all that 


266 TENTH DIALOGUE 


we have just been saying is not far removed from our subject. It 
was necessary that Aristes should understand that it is through 
motion that bodies change as regards figure in their mass, 
and as regards configuration in their insensible particles. It was 
necessary, so to speak, to make him feel this truth, and I think 
that what we have just said may serve for this purpose. Let us 
come, then, to Providence. 


XIII. It is assuredly through the sun that God animates 
the world which we inhabit. It is through the sun that He raises 
vapours. Itis through the movement of vapours that He produces 
winds. It is through the crossing of the winds that He gathers 
together the vapours and resolves them again into rain, and it 
is through rain that He renders our earth fruitful. Whether this 
is so, or whether it is not exactly as I have told you, is, Artistes, 
a question of no importance. You believe, for example, that the 
rain causes the grass to grow, for if it does not rain everything is 
parched. You believe that a certain herb has the power of purging, 
another of nourishing, another still of poisoning ; that fire softens 
wax, and hardens clay, that it burns wood and reduces a part to 
ashes, and finally into glass. In a word, you do not doubt that 
all these bodies have certain qualities or virtues, and that the 
ordinary providence of God consists in the application of these 
virtues, by means of which He produces the variety which we 
admire in His work. Now, these virtues, just as the application of 
them, consist only in the efficacy of movement, since it is through 
movement alone that everything is effected; for it is evident 
that fire burns only through the movement of its particles, that 
it has the power of hardening clay only because those particles 
which it diffuses in all directions meeting the water which is 
in the earth drive it away through the movement which they 
communicate to it, and similarly with regard to the other effects. 
Fire, then, has force or virtue only through the movement of its 
particles, and the application of this force to a given object comes 
only from the movement which has brought the object near the 
fire. In the same way. | 

ARISTES. What ks are ssagiris with regard to fire I exten 
to all natural causes and effects. 


XIV. THEODORE. You see, then, that ordinary Providence 
resolves itself mainly into two things: into laws of the com- 


ON METAPHYSICS 267 


munication of movement, since everything in bodies is effected 
by means of movement, and into the wise combination which 
God has contrived in the order of His productions at the time 
of their creation, that His work should be preserved by the 
natural laws which He has resolved to follow. 

With regard to the natural laws of movement, God has chosen 
the simplest ones. He has willed and wills now that every body 
in motion should move or tend to move in a straight line, that 
when it encounters other bodies it should be diverted from the 
straight line as little as possible, that every body should be carried 
in the direction in which it is impelled, and that if it is impelled at 
the same time by movements of contrary direction, the stronger 
movement shall have the victory over the weaker one, but 
that if these two movements are not contrary, it should move in 
a line which is the diagonal of a parallelogram, the sides of which 
stand to one another in the same proportion as these movements. 
In a word, God has chosen the simplest law on the basis of the 
unique principle that the stronger shall conquer the weaker; 
and, subject to this condition, that there shall always be in the 
world the same quantity of motion. I add the condition because 
experience teaches us that the motion which animates matter 
is not dissipated in time through the clashing of bodies coming 
from different directions, and besides that, God being immutable in 
His nature, the more uniformity one ascribes to His actions, 
the more does one make His procedure bear the character of His 
attributes. 

It is not necessary, Aristes, to enter more fully into the details 
of those natural laws which God follows in the ordinary course of 
His providence. Let them be whatever you please, it matters 
little. You know quite certainly that God alone sets bodies in 
motion, that He accomplishes everything in them by means of 
motion, that He only communicates motion from one body to 
another according to certain laws, whatever those laws may be, 
and that the application of such laws comes from the encounter 
of bodies. You know that collision of bodies is in consequence 
of their impenetrability, the occasional or natural cause which 
determines the efficacy of the general laws. You know that 
' God acts always in a simple and uniform way, that a body in 
motion goes straight, and that impenetrability compels the moving 
body to change, but that nevertheless it changes as little as 
possible, whether because it always follows the same laws or 


268 TENTH DIALOGUE 


because the laws which it follows are the simplest of any. This 
is sufficient so far as the general laws of the communication of 
movement are concerned. Let us come now to the formation 
of the universe, and to the wise combination which God has 
effected between all the parts at the time of the creation for all 
generations, and by reference to these general laws, for it is 
this which is so marvellous in the divine Providence. Follow 
me, please. 


XV. I am thinking, Aristes, of a mass of matter without 
any movement. So far it is a mere block. I wish to make a 
statue out of it. A little motion will soon produce it, for let 
the superfluous matter be removed which, when at rest, formed 
one body with it, and our task is done. I wish this statue to 
have not merely the figure of a man, but also the organs and all 
the parts which we do not see. A little motion will form them, 
for let the matter around that piece of matter out of which I 
wish, for example, to make the heart move, the other parts re- 
maining at rest, and it will cease to be one body with the heart. 
Thus, then, the heart is formed. In the same way I can obtain, 
in idea, all the other organs, such as I conceive them to be. This 
is evident. Finally, I not only wish my statue to have the organs 
of the human body, but I also wish that the mass of which it is 
made should be transformed into flesh and bones, animal spirits, 
and blood, brain, etc. Once more a little movement will satisfy 
my demand; for, granting that flesh consists of fibres of a certain 
configuration intertwined in a certain way, if the matter which 
fills the spaces between the fibres were to begin moving or were to 
have no longer the same relation of distance as that of which the 
fibres are composed, we should obtain flesh; and in the same way, 
with a little motion, the blood, the animal spirits, the bloodvessels, 
and all the rest of the human body can be produced. But what 
is infinitely beyond the capacity of the human mind is to know 
which parts are to be moved, which are to be taken away, and 
which left. Let us suppose now that I want to take a very small 
portion of matter out of the mechanism thus resembling ours and 
to give it to a certain figure, organs, and any configuration of 
parts I please, all this can be effected by means of movement, and 
cannot be executed except by means of movement. For it is 
evident that a part of matter which is one with another can only 
be detached by means of movement. Thus I conceive, without 





ON METAPHYSICS 269 


difficulty, that in a human body God can make another one, 
of the same kind a thousand or ten thousand times smaller, 
and in this one yet another, and so on in the same proportion 
of a thousand or ten thousand to one, and all this at once by 
communicating an infinity of different movements of which 
He alone is cognisant to the infinitesimal particles of a certain mass 
of matter. 

ARISTES. What you are saying then with regard to the human 
body can be easily applied to the organic bodies of all animals 
and plants. 


XVI. THEODORE. Very well, then, Aristes. Conceive, how- 
ever, an indefinite mass of matter as large as the universe out of 
which God wills to make a beautiful world, but one which will 
endure and whose beauties will be preserved and perpetuated 
after their kind. How will He set about it? Will He just 
move the parts of matter in haphazard fashion, and then gradually 
construct the world out of them, by following certain laws, or will 
He construct it all at once? Be careful. The infinitely perfect 
Being knows all the consequences of all the movements which 
He can communicate to matter, whatever you may suppose the 
laws of the communication of movement to be. 

ARISTES. It seems to me clear that God will not move matter 
to no purpose; and, since the first impression which He com- 
municates to the parts is sufficient to produce all sorts of results, 
assuredly He would not think of forming them little by little 
by means of a number of useless movements. 

THEOTIMUS. But what will become of the general laws of the 
communication of movement, if God does not make use of them ? 

ARISTES. That rather embarrasses me. 

THEODORE. What is your difficulty? These laws as yet 
lead to nothing, or rather indeed have no being; for it is the 
impact of bodies which is the occasional cause of the laws of 
the communication of movements. Now, without an occasional 
cause there can be no general law. Hence before God had set 
matter in motion, before bodies could impel one another, God 
did not have to, and was not able to, follow the general laws 
of the communication of movements. Moreover, God only follows 
general laws in order to render His action uniform, and to 
make it bear the character of His immutability. Thus, the first 
step of this procedure, the first movements, cannot and ought not 


270 TENTH DIALOGUE 


to be determined by these laws. Finally, an infinity of general 
laws would be necessary (which means that they would hardly 
be general) in order that He should be able by following them 
to form the organic bodies of animals and plants. Thus, since 
the first impression which God gave to matter ought not, and 
could not, have been regulated in accordance with general laws, 
it had to be regulated solely by reference to the beauty of the 
work which God willed to form and which He was to preserve 
in the course of time in consequence of general laws. Now, this 
first impression of motion wisely distributed was sufficient for 
the production by means of one act of animals and plants which 
are the most excellent works which God has made out of matter, 
and all the rest of the universe. This is evident, since bodies differ 
from one another only by the figure of their masses and by the 
configuration of their particles, and since a little motion can bring 
all this about, as you have just now granted. You were, therefore, 
right, Aristes, in saying that God made out of each mass of matter 
whatever He willed to make out of it in one act. For though 
God made the parts of the universe one after another as we seem 
to be taught in Scripture, it does not follow that He took any 
time, and followed certain general laws, in order to bring them 
gradually to perfection. Dixit et facta sunt. The first impression 
of movement was sufficient to produce them in an instant. 


XVII. THEoTImus. This being so, I see that it is waste of 
time to wish to explain the history with which Scripture furnishes 
us of the creation by means of Cartesian principles or by any 
other principles resembling them. 

THEODORE. Certainly one is mistaken if one claims to prove 
that God created the world by following certain general laws 
of the communication of movement; but one does not waste 
one’s time if one seeks to ascertain what must happen to 
matter in consequence of the laws of motion. And for this 
reason. Though God made each part of the universe in one act, 
He had yet to pay attention to the laws of nature which He 
willed constantly to follow in order to make His action bear 
the character of His attributes. For assuredly His work could 
not have been preserved in its beauty if He had not adapted 
it to the laws of motion. A square sun could not have endured 
so long; a sun without light would soon have become quite 
brilliant. You have read M. Descartes’ Physics, Theotimus, and 








ON METAPHYSICS 271 


you, Aristes, will read it some day, for it is well worth while. It 
is, therefore, not necessary for me to explain this more fully. 
One ought, however, to examine what this first impression of 
motion must have been by the aid of which God formed the 
whole universe in one act for a certain number of centuries. 
For this is the point of view, so to speak, from which I wish to 
make you see and admire the infinite wisdom of Providence in 
the arrangement of matter. 

But I am afraid lest your imagination, perhaps already tired, 
on account of the too abstract things we have just spoken about, 
will not leave you sufficient power of attention to contemplate 
so vast a subject ; for, Aristes, how great is the wisdom which 
the first step of God’s procedure, the first impression of movement, 
involves! What relations, what combinations of relations ! 
Certainly, God knew clearly before this first impression all 
the consequences and all the combination of consequences, 
not merely all the physical combinations, but all the com- 
binations of the physical with the moral, and all the 
combinations of the natural with the supernatural. He com- 
pared with one another all these consequences with all the 
consequences of all possible combinations on all sorts of 
suppositions. He made all these comparisons, I say, in His 
aim to produce the most excellent work, in the simplest, wisest, 
most divine ways. He neglected nothing that could make His 
action bear the character of His attributes; and it was this which 
without hesitation determined Him to take the first step. Try 
to see, Aristes, whither this first step led. Observe how a 
grain of matter driven at first to the right instead of to the left, 
driven with a degree of force more or less great, was able to change 
everything in the physical, the moral, yea, even the supernatural 
spheres! Think, then, of the infinite wisdom of Him who com- 
pared and regulated all things so well, that since the first step 
which He took He orders everything for its end, and goes along 
majestically, immutably, even divinely, without ever repenting, 
up to the time when He takes possession of the spiritual temple 
which He constructed through Jesus Christ, and to which He 
directs all the steps of His procedure. 

AristEs. Truly, Theodore, you are right in concluding our 
discussion, for we should soon be lost in so vast a subject. 

THEODORE. Think of it, Aristes, because to-morrow we shall 
have to deal with it. 


272 TENTH DIALOGUE 


ARISTES. If we embark upon this ocean, we shall perish. 

THEODORE. No, we shall not perish, provided we do not 
desert the vessel which is to carry us. Let us remain inthe Church, 
always submitting to its authority; if we knock lightly against 
the rocks, we shall not suffer shipwreck. Man is made to adore 
God in the wisdom of His action. Let us try to lose our- 
selves happily in its depths. The human mind is never better 
occupied than when in enforced silence it adores the divine 
perfections. But this silence of the soul can come to us only 
after contemplating what is beyond us. Courage then, Aristes ! 
Contemplate, admire the general providence of the Creator. 
I have placed you at a point of view from which you ought to 
discover an incomprehensible wisdom. 





ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


The same subject continued—General Providence in the arrangement of 
bodies and the infinitely infinite combinations of the physical with 
the moral, of the natural with the supernatural. 


THEODORE. Have you, Aristes, made any attempt to compare 
the first impression of movement which God communicated to 
matter, the first of His proceedings in the universe, with the general 
laws of His ordinary providence, and with the various works which 
were to be preserved and developed through the efficacy of those 
laws ? For it is from this first impression of movement that 
we must consider God’s action ; that is, from the point of view 
of general Providence; for God never repents, never belies His 
own nature. Have you looked, then, from this point of view upon 
the beautiful order of created beings and upon the simple and 
uniform action of the Creator ? 

ARISTES. Yes, Theodore, but my view is too short. I have 
discovered a good deal of land, but withal so confusedly that 
I do not know what to say to you. You have raised me to 
heights too high for me. One makes discoveries from a distance, 
but one does not know what one sees. You have lifted me, so 
to speak, above the clouds, and I am dizzy when I look down. 

THEODORE. Ah well, Aristes, let us come down a little. 

THEOTIMUS. But too low down we shall see nothing. 

ARISTES. I beg of you, Theodore, a little more detail. 

THEODORE. Let us descend, Theotimus, since Aristes desires 
it. But let none of us three forget our point of view; for 
it will be necessary to ascend as soon as our imagination has 
been a little reassured and strengthened by some details nearer 
to the senses and more within our reach. 


I. Recall to mind, Aristes, the bees we spoke about yesterday. 
This little animal is a wonderful piece of work. How many 
different organs, what order, what connections, what relations 

18 273 


274 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


between all the parts! Do not imagine that it has less parts 
than the elephant. Apparently it has more. Comprehend, then, 
if you can, the number and the marvellous interplay of all the 
contrivances of this little mechanism. It is the feeble action 
of light which frees these contrivances ; it is the mere pressure 
of objects which determines and regulates all their movements. 
Judge, then, from the construction of these small animals formed 
with such accuracy, finished with such diligence, not of their 
wisdom and foresight, for they have none, but of the wisdom and 
foresight of Him who has gathered together so many contrivances 
and has arranged them with such wisdom in relation to so many 
diverse objects andso many different ends. Assuredly, Aristes, 
you would be wiser than any philosopher that ever lived if you 
knew exactly the reasons of the construction of the parts of 
this little animal. 

ARISTES. I believe it, Theodore. That is already more than 
we can grasp. But if such great skill and such profound 
intelligence are needed for the formation of a simple fly, how 
marvellous is then the production of an infinite number of them 
contained within one another and consequently decreasing 
constantly in size in geometrical progression whose common 
ratio is a thousandth, since one of them produces a thousand, 
and that which contains is greater than that which is contained ? 
This staggers the imagination, but let the intellect recognise the 
wisdom of the author of so many wonderful things ! 

THEODORE. Why, Aristes? If the small bees are of the 
Same organic structure as the large ones, whoever conceives a 
large one can conceive an infinite number of them contained 
in one another. It is, then, only the multiplicity and the small 
size of these closely similar animals which ought to increase 
your admiration for the wisdom of the Creator. But your 
imagination is struck with wonder when it sees on a small 
scale what it has been accustomed to see only on a large scale. 

ARISTES. I thought, Theodore, that I could not have too 
much admiration. 

THEODORE. Yes, but one should admire for good reasons. 
Do not fear; if admiration pleases you, you will find enough 
scope for it in the multiplicity and smallness of these bees 
contained in one another. 

ARISTES. How so then ? 

THEODORE. Because they are-not all alike. 





ON METAPHYSICS 275 


ARISTES. I thought so myself; for what evidence is there to 
show that the grubs of these flies and the eggs of these grubs 
have aS many organs as the flies themselves, as you assert 
they have? 


II. THEODORE. But you are wrong, Aristes, for, quite on the 
contrary, the grubs have all the organic parts which flies have, 
yet they have in addition those which are essential to grubs, 
that is to say, those which are absolutely necessary to render them 
able to seek, devour, and prepare the nourishing juice of the 
fly which they carry with them and which they preserve through 
the instrumentality of the organs and under the form of a grub. 

ARISTES. Indeed! According to this way of looking at the 
matter grubs are more wonderful than flies; they have more 
organic parts. 

THEODORE. Yes, Aristes, and the eggs of the grubs are 
more wonderful than the grubs themselves, and so on all along 
the line. So that the flies of this year had more organs a thousand 
years ago than they have at present. There is a strange paradox 
for you! But observe, it is easily seen that the laws of the 
communication of motion are too simple for the construction 
of organic bodies. 

ARISTES. That is true,asit appears to me. Itisa great deal 
if those laws are sufficient to explain their growth. There are 
people who maintain that insects come from putrefied objects. 
But if a fly has as many organic parts as an ox, I should prefer 
saying that this big animal can be made out of clay to main- 
taining that flies are generated out of rotten flesh. 

THEODORE. You are right. But since the laws of move- 
ment are not enough to account for the construction of complex 
bodies, possessing an infinite number of organic parts, it follows 
necessarily that flies are contained in the grubs out of which they 
spring. Do not, however, Aristes, imagine that the bee, when 
as yet in the grub from which it is to come forth, has the same 
proportions of size, solidity and configuration between its parts 
as it has when it has come forth, for it has often been noted 
that a chick’s head, for example, when within the egg and when 
it appears under the form of a grub is much larger than the rest 
of the body, and that the bones acquire consistence later than 
the other parts. I maintain merely that all the organic parts of 
bees are formed in their grub stage, and are so well adapted to the 


276 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


laws of motion that through their own construction and the 
efficacy of these laws they can grow, without God intervening 
again, so to speak, by an extraordinary providence ; for it is in 
this that the incomprehensible wisdom of the divine providence 
consists. It is this alone which can justify the frequent genera- 
tion of monstrosities, for God may not perform a miracle in 
order to prevent their coming to be. At the time of the Creation 
He constructed animals and plants for all future generations ; He 
laid down the laws of motion which were necessary to make them 
grow. Now He rests, for all He has to do is to follow these laws. 

ARISTES. What wisdom there is in the general providence of 
the Creator! 

THEODORE. Would you like us to ascend a little to a 
point of view whence we can make a survey of the marvels of 
Providence ? 

ARISTES. I am there already, it seems to me, Theodore. I 
admire and adore with all the respect of which I am capable 
the infinite wisdom of the Creator in the variety and incom- 
prehensible accuracy of the different motions which He has once 
for all communicated to this small portion of matter, within which 
He has formed in one stroke bees for all generations—nay, why 
do I say bees ? an infinity of grubs which may be looked upon 
as animals of a different species, and has supplied them within 
so small a portion of space with non-sensuous food in thousands 
of ways which are altogether beyond us; all this by reference to 
the laws of motion, laws so simple and so natural that, although 
God does everything in the ordinary course of His providence 
by their means, it seems as though He never touches anything, 
never intervenes anywhere—in a word, that He is at rest. 

THEODORE. You find then, Aristes, that this procedure is 
divine, and more excellent than that of a God who were to act at 
all moments by means of particular volitions, instead of following 
such general laws; or who, in order to free Himself from the 
care of governing His work, were to give souls to all flies, or rather 
intelligences sufficiently enlightened to form their bodies, or at 
least to guide them according to their needs and to regulate all 
their work ? 

ARISTES. What a comparison ! 


III, THEODORE. Courage then, Aristes. Cast your glance 
further still. At the moment when God gave the first impression 





ON METAPHYSICS 277 


of movement to the parts of this small portion of matter out of 
which He made bees, or any other insect you please, for all 
generations to come, do you think He foresaw that a certain 
one of these animals which was to be born in a certain year 
was on a certain day, a certain hour and under certain circum- 
stances, to direct its eyes to someone with the object of a vicious 
passion, or imprudently to put itself in the nostrils of a horse 
and cause this horse to make a movement fatal to the best Prince 
of the world who will thereby be thrown and killed—a tragic 
death, and involving an infinity of sad consequences ; or, in order 
not to combine the physical with the moral, for this involves 
difficulties the solution of which depends upon certain principles 
which I have not yet explained, do you think that God foresaw 
that this insect was through a particular movement to produce 
something monstrous and irregular in the purely material world ? 
ARISTES. Who can doubt that God foresaw all the con- 
sequences of this first impression of motion, which in an instant 
gave rise to a whole species of a particular insect? He even 
foresaw in a general way all the consequences of the infinite 
and quite different movements which He could have communi- 
cated to this same portion of matter. He foresaw in addition all 
the consequences of all the combinations of this portion of 
matter with all the others and their different movements on 
the assumption of every possible kind of general laws. 
THEODORE. Admire, then, Aristes, adore the depth of the 
wisdom of God who has thus regulated this first impression of 
movement given to such a small portion of matter, after an infinite 
number of comparisons of relations, all laid down by an eternal 
act of His intelligence. From this portion of matter pass to 
another and from it to a third, traverse the whole universe, and 
in one comprehensive glance judge of the wisdom infinitely 
infinite which has regulated the first impression of movement 
through which the whole universe was formed in all its parts and 
for all time ; formed, too, in such a manner that it is assuredly 
the most beautiful work that could be produced by the most 
general and the simplest means; formed in such a manner, rather, 
that the work and the means should express the perfections which 
God possesses, and in the possession of which He is glorified better 
than in that of any other work produced in any other way. 
ARISTES. What an abyss! what immeasurable depths! 
What a number of relations and combinations of relations He 


278 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


had to consider in the first impression of matter in order to 
create the universe, and to adapt it to the general laws of motion 
which God follows in the ordinary course of His providence! 
You have brought me veritably to a point from which one can 
discern the infinite wisdom of the Creator. 
THEODORE. Do you know, Aristes, that you see nothing as yet ? 
ARISTES. How nothing? 


IV. THEODORE. Much, no doubt, Aristes; but this is as 
nothing when compared with the rest. You have glanced over 
the infinitely infinite combinations of the movements of matter. 
But combine the physical with the moral, the movements of 
the body with the volitions of angels and of men. Combine in 
addition the natural with the supernatural, and bring all this 
in relation with Jesus Christ and His Church, for since the latter 
is the principal of God’s designs, it is not likely that in the first 
impression which God communicated to matter He should have 
neglected to regulate His action in accordance with the relation 
which such movements would have with His great and main work. 
Realise, then, with what wisdom it was necessary to regulate the 
first movements of matter, if it be true that the order of nature 
is subordinate to that of grace, if it be true that death overtakes 
us now in consequence of natural laws, and that there is nothing 
miraculous in a man finding himself crushed when a horse falls 
upon him, for you know it is upon the happy or unhappy moment 
of death that our eternity depends. 

ARISTES. Gently, Theodore. It is God who regulates this 
moment. Our death depends upon Him. God alone can bestow 
upon us the gift of preservation. 


V. THEODORE. Who doubts it? Our death depends upon 
God in several ways. It depends upon God because it depends 
upon us; for it is in our power to leave a house which threatens 
ruin, and it is God who has given us the power. It depends 
upon God because it depends upon His angels, for God has given 
to the angels power and has entrusted them with the commission 
of governing the world, or the external side, so to speak, of His 
Church. Our happy death depends upon God because it depends 
upon Jesus Christ, for God has given us in Jesus Christ a chief 
who watches over us, and who will not allow death to overtake 
us unhappily if we beseech Him in a fitting manner for the gift 
of continuance. But do you not think that our death also 





ON METAPHYSICS 279 


depends on God in this sense that He has regulated and produced 
that first impression of movement, one of the results of which 
is that a certain house shall collapse at a certain time and under 
certain circumstances ? Everything depends upon God, because 
it is He who has established all causes, free as well as necessary, 
and because His foresight is so great that He makes use of the 
former as happily as of the latter, for God has not communicated 
His power to minds at haphazard ; He did so only after having 
foreseen all the consequences of their movements as well as 
those of matter. Moreover, everything depends upon God, 
because all causes can act only through the efficacy of the 
divine power. Finally, everything depends upon God because 
He can interrupt by means of miracles 'the ordinary course of 
His providence, and because He never fails to do so when the 
immutable order of His perfections requires it, I mean when 
what He owes to His immutability is of less importance than 
what He owes to His other attributes. But we shall explain 
all this with greater precision in the sequel. Understand then, 
Aristes, that our safety is already assured in the interconnection 
of causes, free as well as necessary, and that all the effects of 
general Providence are so linked together that the smallest 
movement of matter may in consequence of general laws coincide 
with an infinity of considerable events, and that each event 
depends upon an infinity of subordinate causes. Admire, then, 
once again the profundity of God’s wisdom, who before taking 
the first step certainly compared the first movements of matter 
not only with all the natural or necessary consequences, but 
for still stronger reasons with all the moral and supernatural 
consequences, on all possible assumptions. 

ArIsTEs. Assuredly, Theodore, from this point of view I dis- 
cern a wisdom which has no limits. I understand clearly and 
distinctly that general Providence bears the character of an 
infinite intelligence, and that it is incomprehensible quite in 
another way than those who never examine it imagine. A 
Providence based on an absolute will is less worthy of the 
infinitely perfect Being; it bears in a lesser degree the character 
of the divine attributes than that which is regulated by the 
inexhaustible treasures of wisdom and foresight. 


VI, THEODORE, That is what I wanted you to see, Let us 
come down now to some details, in order to refresh your mind, 


280 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


and in order to render accessible to your senses a portion of the 
things which you have just conceived. Have you never amused 
yourself by feeding in a box some caterpillar or other small 
insect which is commonly believed to undergo a transformation 
into a butterfly or fly ? 

ARISTES. Oh, Theodore! all at once you descend from the 
great to the small. You keep on coming back to insects. 

THEODORE. I do so because I am very glad that we should 
be admiring what everybody despises. 

ARISTES. When I was a child I remember finding silkworms. 
I took a delight in watching them making their cocoons and 
burying themselves alive in them, only to revive after a while. 

THEOTIMUS. And I, Theodore, have at present in a box 
full of sand an insect which amuses me, and the history of which 
I know to some extent. Its Latin name is formtca leo (ant-lion). 
It transforms itself into one of those kinds of flies which have 
long bellies, and which are called, I think, demoiselles. 

THEODORE. I know what you are referring to, Theotimus, 
but you are mistaken in believing that it transforms itself into 
a demoiselle. 

THEOTIMUS. I have seen it, Theodore; this fact is estab- 
lished. 

THEODORE. And the other day, Theotimus, I saw a mole 
being transformed into a blackbird. In what way do you think 
does one animal become transformed into another? This is 
as difficult as the formation of insects out of a little putrid 
flesh. 

TuHEOTIMUS. I understand you, Theodore; the formica leo 
does not transform itself, but merely strips itself of its garb and 
arms ; it casts its horns with the aid of which it makes holes and 
seizes the ants which fall therein. In fact, I have noticed these 
horns in the burrow, which the insects make for themselves in the 
sand, and from which they come out no longer in the character 
of a formica leo, but in that of a demoiselle, or in a form more 
magnificent. 

THEODORE. Quite so. The formica leo and the demoiselle 
are not, properly speaking, two animals differing in kind: the 
first contains the second, or all the organic parts of which 
it is made up; but observe, that it possesses in addition what 
it needs for seizing its prey, obtaining food for itself, and pre- 
paring for the other a fitting nourishment. Let us now try 


ee 


ee Te Oe ee 


—e 


a a Na a al a 


ee 


es ae 


_ 


tox... a eee ae 


ON METAPHYSICS 281 


to picture to ourselves the mechanism which is necessary for 
the movements accomplished by this little animal. It moves 
backwards in a spiral line, burying itself all the while in the sand, 
so that, throwing back the sand which it takes up with its horns 
at every one of its movements, it makes a conical burrow at 
the bottom of which it hides itself, its horns open and are 
ready to seize ants and other animals which cannot keep their 
hold when on the brink of the burrow. When the prey escapes 
it and makes sufficient effort to cause it to apprehend its loss, it 
overwhelms it and crushes it by throwing sand upon it, and 
through this means makes the sides of the burrow more steep. 
Then it seizes the prey, draws it under the sand, sucks its blood ; 
and, taking it between its horns, throws it away as far as possible 
from the burrow. Finally, it constructs for itself, in the finest and 
most mobile sand, a perfectly round tomb, decorates it very nicely 
in preparation for its death, or rather for resting at ease, and 
finally after a few weeks it is seen coming out in all its new glory 
and in the shape of a demoiselle, after having thrown off the 
several coverings and skins of the formica leo. Now, how many 
organic parts are necessary for these movements ? How many 
vessels are needed to carry the blood upon which the formica leo 
and its demoiselle feed? It is clearthen that this animal, having 
stripped itself of all these parts in its tomb, has a much smaller 
number of organs when it appears under the form of a fly than 
when it is seen under that of a formica leo, unless one should 
be inclined to maintain that organs can be formed and adapted 
to one another in consequence of the laws of movement. For 
to suppose that God has commissioned some intelligence to 
provide for the needs of these insects and preserve their species 
and always to form new ones out of these would be to humanise 
the divine Providence and to make it bear the character of a 
limited intelligence. 

ARISTES. Assuredly, Theodore, there is a greater diversity of 
organs in the formica leo than in the fly, and for the same reason 
in the silkworm than in the butterfly, for these worms also strip 
themselves of many skins, because they give up a sort of head, a 
large number of feet, and all the other organs required for 
searching, devouring, directing and distributing the food adapted 
for grubs and butterflies. Similarly I see that there is more 
art in the eggs of grubs than in the grubs themselves, for, 
granted that the organic parts of grubs are in the egg, as you 


282 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


say, it is clear that the whole egg involves more art than does 
the grub alone, and so on ad infinitum. 

THEODORE. I wish you had read M. Malpighi’s book on 
the silkworm, and what he has written about the formation of 
a chick within the egg.t You would see perhaps that what 
I am telling you is not without foundation. Yes, Aristes, the 
egg is the work of an infinite intelligence. Men do not find 
anything in the egg of the silkworm, and in the egg of a hen 
all they see is the white and yolk and perhaps the chalaze or 
knots; yet they take them for the germ of the chick. But. . 

ARISTES. What! the germ of the chick! Are you referring 
to what one finds immediately on opening an egg, which is white 
and somewhat hard and rather unpleasant to eat? 

THEODORE. No, Aristes; it is one of the knots which serves 
to keep the yolk suspended in the white in such a manner that 
in whatever way the egg be turned that side of the yolk which 
is the least heavy, or where the chick is, should always be upright 
against the warm breast of the hen. There are two of these 
knots which are attached on one side to the point of the egg 
and on the other to the yolk, one at each end. 

ARISTES. What a wonderful mechanism ! 

THEODORE. In this there is not much intelligence. But 
you can see from this that more art and skill is required for 
the formation of an egg and all that it contains than of a mere 
chick, since the egg contains the chick, and has in addition its 
own particular structure. 


VII. Conceive then now, if you can, I beg of you, what ought 
to be at present the construction of the organs of the egg or of 
the grubs which are to be butterflies six thousand years hence 
in consequence of the laws of motion. Admire, too, the variety 
of the organs of all the grubs and all the eggs which are contained 
in one another for all this time. Try to picture to yourself 
what the food could have been upon which the grubs and 
butterflies of to-day fed six thousand years ago. There is a 
great difference between the form of a demoiselle and that of 
a formica leo, but perhaps there is an equally great difference 
between the /formica leo and the egg which contains it and so 
on. The silkworm feeds upon the leaves of the mulberry-tree, 
but the small grub contained within the egg feeds upon noe ; 

t De Bombyce. 





inet 


—— 


ena nn 


er re 


re ee ga ey ee ae 


ST OF ee ee 


SE ens Sw ee 


ie ie 


ON METAPHYSICS 283 


it has near it all that it needs. It is true that it does not 
always eat, but it maintains itself without eating, and it has 
been maintaining itself for six thousand years. It is looked 
upon as strange when certain animals spend the winter with- 
out any food. How marvellous isit, then, that silkworms should 
husband theirs so exactly, and that it should not fail them except 
when they are strong enough to break through their prison wall, 
and when the mulberry-trees have put forth tender leaves where- 
upon they can feed anew! 

How wonderful is Providence in having enclosed, for example, 
within the eggs from which the chicks are hatched all that is 
needed to make them grow and even to feed them during the first 
days after they are hatched! For, as they do not yet know 
how to eat, and drop all that they peck up, the yolk of the egg, 
a half of which is not used up, and which remains in their stomach, 
feeds them and strengthens them. But this same Providence 
is seen even better in the neglected eggs which insects drop 
everywhere. It is necessary either that the hen should hatch 
its eggs itself, or that the industry of man should come to the 
rescue ; but even if the insects’ eggs are not hatched, the insects 
do not fail to come out very successfully. The sun through its 
heat stimulates them, so to speak, to devour their food at the 
same time as it prepares fresh food for them, and as soon as 
the grubs have broken through their prison walls they find them- 
selves in an abundance, in the midst of young buds or tender 
leaves adapted to their needs. The insect to which they owe 
their birth has taken care to put them into a place suited for them, 
and has left the rest to the more general order of Providence. 
One insect lays its eggs underneath a folded leaf, attached to a 
branch, for fear that it might fall down in the winter; another 
fixes them in a safe place near their food; the demoiselle formica 
leo hides them in the sand, sheltered from the rain; most of them 
drop them in the water. Ina word, they all put them in places 
where they can have their wants provided, not through any par- 
ticular intelligence which guides them, but as a result of the 
arrangement of the parts making up their mechanism, and in 
consequence of the general laws of the communication of motion. 

ARISTES. It is incomprehensible. 

THEODORE. Quite true; but it is well to understand 
clearly that the providence of God is absolutely incompre- 
hensible. 


284 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


VIII. THEotTimus. I must tell you of an experiment which I 
have made. One day in the summer I took a small piece of meat, 
put it in a bottle, and covered it with a piece of silk. I observed 
that various flies came and laid their eggs or their grubs on the 
silk, and that as soon as they were hatched they gnawed through 
the silk and dropped upon the meat, which they devoured in a 
short time. As, however, this smelt badly I threw it all away. 

THEODORE. In this way flies come from that which is putre- 
fied. They lay their eggs or grubs on meat and forthwith fly 
away ; the worms feed on it and the meat gets putrid. When 
these grubs have gorged themselves they enter into their cocoons 
and come out as flies, and on this ground most men believe that 
insects come from that which is putrefied. 

THEOTIMUS. What you say is certain; for I have several 
times put some meat upon which no flies had yet been into a 
hermetically sealed flask, and I have never found any grubs in it. 

ARISTES. But how is it that so many large grubs are to be 
found in all kinds of fruits ? 

THEODORE. They are full grown when we find them, but they 
were small when they came into the fruit. Search thoroughly 
and you will discoversome little hole or scar in the skin. But let 
us not dwell any longer upon the proofs which are furnished 
to show that these animaJs owe their origin to putrefaction, 
for these proofs are so weak that they do not deserve 
refutation. Mice are found in newly made vessels or in a 
place where previously there were none. Hence it follows 
that this animal must have been generated out of matter 
in a state of putrefaction, as though these animals were for- 
bidden to attend to their wants during the night, and to pass 
over the planks and over the ropes into boats, and from them 
into the large ships, or as though the vessels would not be built 
elsewhere than on the waterside! JI cannot understand how 
so many people of good sense can fall into so gross and palp- 
able an error on such slender evidence ; for what can be more in- 
comprehensible than that an animal should be formed by nature 
out of putrefied flesh? It is infinitely easier to conceive that 
a bit of rusty iron might be transformed into a perfect watch; 
for there are infinitely more contrivances and more delicate ones 
in a mouse than in the most complicated timepiece. 

ARISTES. Assuredly, we cannot comprehend how a machine 
which is composed of an infinite number of different organs, 


Matai St = ee ee a ee a 


Le ee en cae a ee nna a i 





ODP oS 


$e 


fea. 


ON METAPHYSICS 285 


perfectly well adapted to one another and intended for different 
ends, can be the effect of the simple and natural laws that all 
bodies must move in the line of least resistance; for this law is 
much more calculated to destroy the machine than to produce 
it. Neither can we comprehend how animals of the same species, 
following one another in regular succession, could all be contained 
in the first of them. 

THEODORE. If one does not understand how this can be, one 
understands at least that it is not impossible, since matter is 
infinitely divisible; but one will never understand how the laws 
of movement can produce bodies made up of an infinite number 
of organs. One finds it sufficiently difficult to conceive how these 
laws can bring about their growth little by little. What one does 
see quite well is that the laws in question can destroy them ina 
thousand different ways. One cannot see how the union of the two 
sexes can be the cause of pregnancy; but one can understand that 
this is not impossible on the assumption that the bodies are 
already formed. But that this union should be the cause of the 
organisation of the parts of the animal and of a particular animal, 
it seems to me one can see quite well is not possible. 

ARISTES. I have heard, nevertheless, that M. Descartes had 
begun a treatise on the formation of the foetus, in which he 
attempted to explain how an animal can be formed from the 
mingling of the semen of the two sexes. 

THEODORE. The rough sketch given by this philosopher 
may help us to understand how the laws of motion are sufficient 
to bring about the gradual growth of the parts of an animal. 
But that these laws should form such parts and link them together 
issomething that no one will ever prove. Apparently M. Descartes 
recognised this himself, for he did not press his ingenious con- 
jectures very far. 

ARISTES. His undertaking was somewhat bold. 

THEODORE. Very bold, if he intended to give an account 
of the construction of animals, as God has made them; for 
they have an infinite number of appliances which he ought 
to have known before looking for the causes of their formation. 
But apparently he did not think of this; for he would not be 
wise who should seek to explain exactly how a watchmaker makes 
a watch without knowing beforehand of what parts this watch 
is composed. 

ARISTES. This philosopher would, perhaps, have done better 


286 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


to explain the generation of plants rather than that of animals 
by means of the laws of motion. 


IX. THEODORE. Bynomeans. The undertaking would have 
been equally impossible. If the seeds did not contain in miniature 
what we see on a large scale in plants, general laws could never 
render them fertile. 

ARISTES. Plantsin the seeds, an apple-tree in a kernel! One 
always finds it rather difficult to believe these things, though 
one knows quite well that matter is infinitely divisible. 

THEOTIMUS. I have made an experiment which has con- 
tributed a good deal to convince me of it. Not that I believe, 
by any means, that, for example, the apple-tree which is in the 
germ of the kernel has the same proportions of magnitude and 
other qualities between its branches, leaves and fruits as large 
trees have; and assuredly Theodore does not maintain this 
either. I maintain merely that all the organic parts of the 
apple-tree are so formed and so well adapted to the laws of motion 
that through their own construction and the efficacy of these laws 
they can grow without the aid of a particular providence. 

ARISTES. I understand your opinion quite well. Tell us 
about your experiment. 

TueEotimus. I took, Aristes, about a score of the largest 
beans. I opened two or three, and I noticed that they were made 
up inside of two parts easily separable from one another, and 
which I found are called its cotyledons (or lobes) ; that the germ 
was attached to both of these lobes; that on one side it ended in 
a point tending outwards, and that on the other it was hidden 
between the lobes. That is what I saw at first. I sowed the 
other beans so as to make them germinate and to see how they 
grew. Two days afterwards I began to dig them up. I continued 
for fifteen days, and I noticed distinctly that the root was con- 
tained in that part of the germ which tends outwards and which 
ends in a point; that the plant was contained in that part of 
the germ which passes between the two lobes ; that the root was 
itself a plant which had its roots in the substance of the two 
lobes of the bean from which it derived its food; that when it 
sprouted into the earth as plants do in the air, it abundantly 
furnished to the plant the necessary juice; that the plant as 
it grew passed between the lobes, which, after having contributed 
to the growth of the root, changed into leaves and protected the 


Se 


a 


ST GR a a ee 


ON METAPHYSICS 287 


plant from being injured by the air. In this way I convinced 
myself that the germ of the bean contained the root of the plant 
and the plant itself, and that the lobes of the bean were the 
store in which this small plant had already been sown and already 
had its roots. Take, Aristes, some of these large beans which 
are eaten in the beginning of the summer; open them gently; 
and examine them carefully. Without a microscope you will see 
to some extent what I have just been telling you. You will 
soon discover the first leaves of the plant in that small part of the 
germ folded up between the two lobes.! 

ARISTES. I am ready to believe allthis. But that this seed 
contains the plant which we may see in twenty years is some- 
thing which it is difficult to imagine, and which your experi- 
ment does not prove. 

THEOTIMUS. That is true; but we already see that the plant 
is in the seed, we see even without the aid of a microscope that 
even in the winter the tulip isin the bulb. We cannot at present 
see in the seed all the parts of the plant. Well, Aristes, we must 
try to imagine them. We cannot imagine how the plants which 
will appear twenty years hence are in the seed. We must 
try to conceive it; at least it is conceivable. But one does 
not see how plants can be formed solely in consequence of 
the general laws of the communication of motion. One cannot 
imagine how this can be so; one can still less conceive it. What 
reason, therefore, can one adduce in favour of it and against the 
view which Theodore has just put before us? 

ARISTES. I should be very much inclined to believe that 
God preserves animals and plants by means of particular volitions, 
if Theodore had not pointed out to me that to remove from 
Providence its simplicity and generality would be to humanise 
it and to make it bear the character of a limited intelligence. 
We must, therefore, give up this idea and believe that God in 
the first impression of movement which He communicated to 
matter distributed it so wisely, that in one stroke He formed 
all animals and all plants for all generations. This is possible, 
since matter is infinitely divisible. And this is what has 
happened since this procedure is more worthy of the infinitely 
perfect Being than any other. 

TuHEoTimus. Add to this, Aristes, that Scripture teaches us 
that now God rests, and that at first He did not merely make the 

t Cf, L’Anatomie des Planies, by M. Grew and M. Malpighi. 


288 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


plants of the first year of the creation, but also the seeds fos 
all the others. ‘‘ And God said, let the earth put forth grass, 
herb yielding seed and fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, 
wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.’’! These last words,. 
‘‘wherein is the seed thereof,’ added to these: ‘‘ And on the 
seventh day God ended His work which He had made,’’2 indicate, 
it seems to me, that God, in order to preserve His creatures, no 
longer acts as He did when He made them. Now He acts in two 
ways alone, either by means of particular volitions or by general 
volitions or laws. He does nothing now, therefore, but follow 
His laws, unless He has good reasons which compel Him to 
interrupt the course of His providence—reasons which I do not 
believe you could find in the needs of animals or of plants. 


X. ARISTES. No, doubtless not; for even if they were 
decreased by half their number, there would be only too many 
of them. For, pray tell me, Theodore, of what avail are all those 
many plants which are useless for our purpose, all those insects 
which annoy us? These small animals are the work of an infinite 
wisdom, I grant. But it is exactly this fact which is the source 
of my difficulty ; for why produce so many excellent things to 
feed the swallows and devour our buds? Isit, Theodore, because 
the world would not be as perfect as it is if caterpillars and 
small insects did not strip the trees of their fruits and leaves ? 

THEODORE. If you judge, Aristes, of the works of God solely 
by their relation to you, you will soon blaspheme against Provi- 
dence; you will soon entertain strange opinions about the 
wisdom of the Creator. 

ARISTES. What! Is it not for the good of man that God 
has made everything ? 

THEODORE. Yes, Aristes, for the sake of that man to 
whom God has subjected everything without any exception; 
for the sake of that man of whom St. Paul speaks in the second 
chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. God has made everything 
for the sake of His Son, everything for the sake of His Church, 
and His Church for His sake. But if He made flies for man, 
He did so assuredly in order to annoy and punish him. Most 
animals have parasites peculiar to them, but man has this ad- 
vantage over them, that there are many different kinds for him 
alone, so true is it that God has made everything for him. 

1 Gen, i. It. @ Ibid) we 2: 


ee ne ee a EE 


ON METAPHYSICS 289 


It is in order to devour his corn that God made locusts. It is in 
order to sow his fields that He gave wings as it were to the seed 
of thistles. It is in order to wither his fruits that He produced 
insects differing infinitely in kind. In this sense, if God did not 
make everything for man, He came pretty near doing so. 

Observe, Aristes, the infinite foresight of God. In accordance 
with this foresight, He was bound to regulate all His designs. 
Before giving to matter that first impression of movement which 
formed the universe for all generations, He knew clearly all the 
consequences of all the possible combinations of the physical 
with the moral, on the basis of all kinds of suppositions. He 
foresaw that under such and such circumstances man would 
sin, and that his sin would be communicated to all his posterity 
in consequence of the laws of the conjunction of soul and body. 
Hence, because He willed to permit this fatal fall, He was bound 
to make use of His foresight and to combine the physical with 
the moral so wisely, that all His works should give rise between 
them and for all generations to the most beautiful harmony 
possible. And this marvellous harmony consists partly in the 
order of justice, that man having revolted against the Creator, 
which revolt God foresaw was bound to occur, all creatures 
should revolt so to speak against him, and punish him for his 
disobedience. That is why there are so many different animals 
waging war upon us. 


XI. ARISTES. What! Before man had sinned, had God 
already prepared the instruments of His vengeance? For you 
know that man was created only after everything else had been 
created. This seems to me very harsh. 

THEODORE. Before his fall man had no enemies. His body 
and everything in his environment were in submission to him ; 
he suffered no pain against his own will. It was just that God 
should protect him by means of a special providence, or that 
He should put him under the guardianship of some tutelary 
angel, in order to prevent any grevious consequences of the laws of 
the communication of motion. Had man preserved his innocence, 
God would always have had the same care for him, for He never 
fails to deal justly with His creatures. But now! do you not 
desire God to make use of His foresight and to choose the wisest 


t Recherche Il, ch. vii, and the Eclaiycissement on this chapter, 
2 Eccl. xxxix. 35. 


19 


290 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


combination possible between the physical and the moral ? 
Do you desire an infinitely wise Being not to make His action 
bear the character of His wisdom, or to have made man and 
have tried him before making the creatures which inconvenience 
us, or finally to have changed His plan and reformed His work 
after the fallof Adam? God, Aristes, never repents, never belies 
Himself. The first step which He takes is regulated by the 
foresight of all that is to follow it. Nay, indeed, God only 
decides to take this first step after having compared it not only 
with what is to follow it but with an infinity of other suppositions 
and other combinations of all kinds of the physical with the 
moral, and of the natural with the supernatural. 

Once again, Aristes, God foresaw that man under such and 
such circumstances would revolt. After having compared 
everything, He thought that He ought to permit the Fall. I 
Say permit because He did not compel man to fall. Hence 
by a wise combination of the physical with the moral He had 
to make His action bear the mark of His foresight. But, 
say you, has He, then, before the Fall prepared the instruments 
of His vengeance ? Why not, if He foresaw this Fall and willed 
to punish it? Had God made man unhappy when innocent, 
had He made use of those instruments before the Fall, one would 
have had cause for complaint. But is it forbidden to a father 
to keep some rods ready for chastising his child, especially if 
he foresees that the child will not fail to disobey him? Ought 
he not even to show him these menacing rods in order to keep 
him on the path of duty? Can one doubt that bears and 
lions were created before the Fall? And is it not enough to 
believe that these cruel beasts whom God uses now for our 
punishment respected in Adam his innocence and the Divine 
Majesty ? But if you find it ill that before the Fall God should 
have prepared instruments for punishing it, console yourself; 
for by His foresight He also found the remedy for this evil before 
it had occurred. Certainly, before the Fall of the first man God 
had already designed to sanctify His Church through Jesus 
Christ ; for St. Paul teaches us that, in their marriage which 
preceded the Fall, Adam and Eve were the symbol of Jesus Christ 
and His Church. ‘‘ This is a great mystery; but I speak con- 
cerning Christ and the Church,’’! the first Adam being, till his 
Fall, the figure of Him that was to come.? God’s foresight being 

: Eph. v. 32. * Rom. v. 14. 


I a er 


a a ee 


ON METAPHYSICS 291 


infinite, everything, Aristes, is regulated in accordance with it. 
God permitted the Fall. Why? Because He foresaw that His work 
retrieved in a certain manner would be of greater value than the 
same work as at first constructed. He laid down general laws, 
in accordance with which the fields were to suffer from ice and 
hail; He created cruel beasts and an infinite number of very 
incommodious animals. Why? Because He foresaw the Fall. He 
instituted an infinite number of marvellous connections between 
all these works. He typified Jesus Christ and His Church 
in a thousand ways. This is an effect and a sure indication 
of His foresight and wisdom. Do not think it ill, then, that 
God made use of His foresight, and that He has once and 
for all wisely combined the physical with the moral, not for 
the short time during which the first man was to preserve his 
innocence, but having regard to him and all his children as they 
were to be to the end of all generations. Adam could not com- 
plain of the animals devouring one another, while they rendered 
to him, as their sovereign, the respect which was his due. 
Rather was he bound to learn from this fact that they were 
only brutes, incapable of reason, and that God had distinguished 
him from among all His creatures. 


XII. Artistes. I thoroughly appreciate what you are saying. 
God had good reasons for the creation of large animals capable 
of punishing us. But why so many small insects that do us 
neither good nor evil and the mechanism of which is perhaps 
even more wonderful than that of the large animals, a mechanism, 
moreover, which is hidden from us, and which does not cause 
us to recognise the wisdom of the Creator ? 

THEODORE. Without stopping to prove to you that there 
is no animal, however small, which cannot in one way or another 
stand in some relation to us, I reply that the main design of 
God in the formation of these small insects was not to do us 
any good or evil by their means, but to adorn the universe with 
works worthy of His wisdom and of His other attributes. Most 
men despise insects, but there are some who have regard for them. 
Apparently, the angels themselves admire them. But even if all 
intelligent minds ignore them, the fact that these small animals 
express the divine perfections and render the universe more perfect 
in itself, though less comfortable for sinners, is sufficient reason 
for their creation, granting that God was able to preserve them 


292 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


without multiplying His ways ; for God has assuredly made the 
most perfect work by the simplest and most general means. 
He foresaw that the laws of movements were sufficient to preserve 
in the world any species of insects you like. He willed to 
make all possible use of His laws in order to render His work 
more finished. He, therefore, made from the very first whole 
species of this insect by means of a wonderful division of a 
certain portion of matter; for it is necessary always to bear well 
in mind that it is by means of movement that everything is 
effected in bodies, and that, in the first determination of move- 
ments, it was a matter of indifference to God whether the bodies 
should be made in one way or another, there being no general 
laws of the communication of movements before bodies had 
come into contact with one another.! 

ARISTES. I see that, Theodore. A world filled with an 
infinity of animals small and large is more beautiful and 
reveals greater intelligence than another world wherein there 
arenoinsects. Now, such a world does not cost God, so tospeak, 
any more than another, nor does it require a more complex 
and particular Providence, and consequently it bears just as well 
as any other world the character of the divine immutability. 
It should not, therefore, surprise us to find that God has made 
so large a number of insects. 


XIII. THEODORE. What we are saying now, Aristes, is 
general in character and does not exclude an infinity of reasons 
which God had for making the world in the way He did. 

ARISTES. I must tell you, Theodore, of a thought which 
occurred to me when you spoke of the apparent transformation 
of insects. Worms creep upon the earth. There they lead a 
sad and debasing life. But they make for themselves a tomb 
whence they come out glorious. I thought that by this God 
desired to typify the life, death and resurrection of His Son, 
and even of all Christians. 

THEODORE. I am very glad, Aristes, that this thought should 
have occurred to you, for though it seems to me quite sound, 
I should not have dared to propose it to you. 

ARISTES. Why not ? 

THEODORE. Because it has something base in it which dis- 
pleases the imagination. Besides, this word alone,—namely, 

t Dialogue X, 17, 


ON METAPHYSICS 293 


worm or insect,—when joined to the great idea which we ought 
to have of the Saviour, may excite ridicule; for I suppose you 
know that the ridiculous consists in the junction of the small 
with the great. 

ARISTES. Yes ; but what seems ridiculous to the imagination 
is often very reasonable and just ; for often enough do we despise 
what we do not know. 

THEODORE. Quite true, Aristes. The lily of the field which 
we neglect is more finely arrayed than Solomon in all his glory. 
Jesus Christ did not fear ridicule when He advanced this 
paradox. The imagination is satisfied, as well as the reason, 
when one compares the magnificence of King Solomon with the 
glory of the resurrected Jesus Christ. Butit is not satisfied when 
one seeks in the beauty of the lilies an image of the Saviour. 
Nevertheless, Solomon’s magnificence was but the work of man, 
whereas it is God who has given to the flowers all their adorn- 
ments. 

ARISTES. Do you think, then, that God has typified Jesus 
Christ in plants as well as in insects ? 

THEODORE. | I believe, Aristes, that God has connected every- 
thing with Jesus Christ in a thousand different ways, and that 
created things not only express the divine perfections, but are 
also as much as that is possible emblems of His well-beloved Son. 
The seed which one sows must, so to speak, die in order to be 
resuscitated and yield its fruit. I think that this is a natural 
symbol of Jesus Christ, who died in order to come to life again 
gloriously. ‘‘ Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and 
die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” ! 

THEOTIMUS. One can make use of whatever one likes for 
the purpose of comparisons. But it does not follow on that 
account that God desired to symbolise Jesus Christ by means of 
all the things which have but an arbitrary relation to Him. 

THEODORE. If I did not know, Theotimus, that God’s 
principal design is Jesus Christ and His Church; that nothing 
is acceptable to God except through Jesus Christ ; and that it 
is in Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ that the universe 
subsists, because there is no one but Jesus Christ to sanctify it, 
extract it from its profane state, and render it divine,? I should look 
upon what I now take to be natural symbols as arbitrary and 
quite unworthy comparisons. Yes, Theotimus, I believe that 

t John xii. 24, 2 Dialogue IX, 6. 


294 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


God had Jesus Christ so much in view when He formed the 
universe that perhaps the most wonderful thing in providence 
is the relation or connection which it establishes incessantly 
between the natural and the supernatural, between what happens 
in the world and what occurs in the Church of Jesus Christ. 


XIV. ARIsTES. Assuredly, Theotimus, that in the trans- 
formations of insects God desired to symbolise Jesus Christ 
is a fact which stares us in the face. A worm is despicable 
and impotent; was not Jesus Christ despised? ‘‘ But I am 
a worm and no man; a reproach of men and despised of the 
people.”’! Was He not burdened with our infirmities and our 
weakness ? “ Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our 
sorrows.”2 A worm shuts itself up in its tomb and revives some- 
time afterwards without being corrupted. Jesus Christ, too, 
died and rose, without His body having been subjected to the 
power of corruption ; “‘ neither did His flesh see corruption.” 3 
The resurrected worm has a body which is, so to speak, all 
spirit. It doesnot creep, it flies. Itno longer feeds upon putrefied 
things, it only seeks flowers. It has nothing despicable; a 
more magnificent adornment it could not have. In the same way 
Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and was overwhelmed with 
glory ; He rose into the heavens, He no longer crept about, so to 
speak, in Judea from village to village. He was no longer subject 
to the weakness and infirmity of His laborious life. He rules over 
all the nations, and can break them as one breaks an earthen 
pot, as the Scripture saith. Supreme power was given to Him 
in heaven and upon earth. Can it be said that this analogy 
is arbitrary ? Assuredly it is natural. 

THEODORE. You are forgetting, Aristes, some points of 
resemblance too close to be neglected. 

ARISTES. What are they ? 

THEODORE. These worms before their transformation keep 
on growing. But flies, butterflies and generally everything that 
flies after having been a worm, all that has undergone trans- 
formation, remains ever in the same state. 

ARISTES. It is so because on earth one can keep on 
increasing one’s merits, whereas in heaven one remains as one is. 

THEODORE. I have noted that insects do not procreate 
unless they are resuscitated and, so to speak, glorified. 


t Ps. xxii. 6. 2 [sa. ]iii, 4. 3 Acts ii. 35. ¢ Ps. cx. 


ON METAPHYSICS 295 


ARISTES. You are right. It is because Jesus Christ only 
sent the Holy Spirit to His Church, only rendered it fruitful, 
after His resurrection and after He had entered into posses- 
sion of His glory. ‘‘ For the Spirit was not yet given,” 
says St. John,t ‘‘ because Jesus was not yet glorified’; and 
Jesus Christ Himself said, ‘“‘ It is expedient for you that I go 
away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come 
unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.”?, I am no 
longer surprised that God has made such a large number of 
insects. 

THEODORE. If God takes pleasure in His work, Theotimus, 
it is because He sees everywhere in it his well-beloved Son; 
for we ourselves are acceptable to God, only because we are 
expressions of Jesus Christ. Matter cannot, through the modifi- 
cation of which it is capable, express exactly the inner disposition 
of the saintly soul of Jesus, His charity, His humility, His patience. 
But it can very well imitate the different forms which His adorable 
body assumes. And I think that the honour which the arrange- 
ment of matter, that symbolises Jesus Christ and His Church, 
does to the love of the Father for the Son is greater than the 
honour which any other arrangement might do to His wisdom 
and to His other attributes. 

ARISTES. Perhaps even it isin the arrangements of matter 
suited to typify Jesus Christ that there is most skill and intelli- 
gence ; for when a living animal makes for itself a tomb in order 
to shut itself up therein and to rise from it gloriously, can one 
conceive a more wonderful mechanism than that through which 
these movements are executed ? 

THEOTIMUS. I quite see your point, and, moreover, Theodore, 
I believe that God has even symbolised in the dispositions of 
bodies those of the saintly soul of Jesus, and principally the excess 
of His love for His Church; for St. Paul teaches us3 that this 
violent passion of love which causes one to leave one’s father 
and mother for the sake of one’s wife is an image of the excess 
of the love of Jesus for His spouse. Now, though animals, strictly 
speaking, are incapable of love, they express in their movements 
this great passion and reproduce their species almost in the 
manner of men. They, therefore, typify naturally this violent 
love of Jesus Christ, which caused Him to shed His blood for 
His Church. In fact, to express emphatically and vividly the 

t John vii. 39. * Ibid. xvi. 7. 3 Eph, v. 


296 ELEVENTH DIALOGUE 


folly of the cross, the annihilation of the Son of God, the excess 
of His love for mankind, a blind and wanton passion, so to speak, 
would be necessary, a passion which knows no limits. 

ARISTES. Let us admire, then, the incomprehensible wisdom 
of the Creator in the wonderful relations which He has established 
amongst His works, and let us not regard as useless those created 
things which perhaps do us neither good nor evil; they render 
God’s work more perfect ; they express the divine perfections ; 
they are symbols of Jesus Christ. It is that which constitutes 
their excellence and their beauty. 

THEODORE. Quite so, Aristes. But since God loves His 
creatures only in proportion to the relation in which they stand 
to His perfections, only in so far as they are expressions of 
His Son, let us be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, and 
let us shape ourselves in accordance with the model which He 
has given us in His Son. It is not enough for Christians to 
typify Jesus Christ as the animals and material things do, or 
even as Solomon did by the outward show of a brilliant glory. 
It is necessary to imitate His virtues, those virtues which He 
practised during His humiliating and painful life, those virtues 
which are suitable for us whilst we creep upon the earth, well 
knowing that a new life is reserved for us in heaven, where 
we expect our glorious transformation. ‘‘ For our conversation 
is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the 
Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it 
may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.” ! 


s°Phil, 313,20, / 21, 


Af ee er ee ee 


TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


The Divine Providence in the laws of the conjunction of soul and body— 
Through this conjunction God brings us into relation with all His 
works—The laws of the union of the mind with Reason—tThe for- 
mation of societies through these two sorts of law—The distribution 
among men, through the aid of the angels, of temporary goods, and 
through Jesus Christ of inner grace and all kinds of good—The 
generality of Providence, 


ARISTES. Ah, Theodore, how wonderful God is in His works, 
what depth there is in His designs, what relations and combina- 
tions of relations He had to compare in order to give to matter 
that first impression which formed the universe with all its 
parts, not for one moment, but for all generations! What 
wisdom there is in the subordination of causes, in the inter- 
linking of effects, in the conjunction of all the bodies which 
make up the world, in the infinite combinations, not only of 
the physical with the physical, but of the physical with the moral, 
and of both with the supernatural ! 

THEODORE. If the mere arrangement of matter, if the 
necessary effects of certain very simple and very general laws 
of motion, appear to us to be something so very marvellous, 
what ought we to think of the different societies which arise 
and maintain themselves in consequence of the laws of the 
conjunction of the soul and body ? What ought we to say of the 
Jewish people and its religion, and finally of the Church of Jesus 
Christ ? What should we think, my dear Aristes, of the heavenly 
Jerusalem, if we had a clear idea of the nature of the material 
out of which this saintly city will be constructed, and could form 
a conception of the order and harmony of all the parts of which 
it will be composed ? For, after all, if out of the vilest of created 
things, out of matter namely, God has made so magnificent 
a world, what ought to be the temple of the true Solomon, a 
temple which will be constructed only out of intelligent spirits ? It 


is the impact of bodies which determines the efficacy of natural 
207 


298 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


laws; and this occasional cause, blind and simple though it be, 
produces, through the wisdom of the providence of the Creator, 
an infinity of wonderful works. What, then, will be the beauty 
of the house of God, being as it is an intelligent nature, illu- 
mined by the eternal wisdom, and subsisting in the eternal 
wisdom ; for, as I shall soon explain, it is Jesus Christ who 
determines the efficacy of the supernatural laws by the aid of 
which God executes this great work? How magnificent this 
temple of the true Solomon will be! Will not this universe 
be so much the more perfect because souls are more perfect 
than bodies and the occasional cause of the order of grace is 
more excellent than that which determines the efficacy of natural 
laws? Assuredly, God is always like unto Himself. His wisdom 
is not exhausted by the wonders which He has accomplished. 
He will no doubt produce out of the realm of spirit beauties 
which will infinitely surpass all that He has made out of matter. 
What do you think of this, my dear Aristes ? 

ARISTES. I think, Theodore, you delight in precipitating 
me from abyss to abyss. 

THEODORE. Yes, from deep abysses into still deeper ones. 
Do you want to consider only the beauties of this visible world, 
only the providence of the Creator, in the division of matter, 
in the formation and arrangement of bodies? This earth 
which we inhabit is made only for the sake of the societies which 
arise thereon. If men are capable of building up societies, it is 
in order to serve God in one and the same religion. Every- 
thing is by nature connected with or related to the Church of 
Jesus Christ, to the spiritual temple wherein God is to dwell for 
all eternity. We must not, therefore, linger over the first abyss 
of God’s providence in the division of matter and the arrange- 
ment of bodies; we must leave this abyss in order to enter 
into a second, and thence into a third, until we arrive 
where all things terminate and where God brings all 
things into connection. For it is not enough to believe and 
to say that God’s providence is incomprehensible; it is neces- 
sary to know this, to understand it. And in order to make 
sure to ourselves that it is incomprehensible in every way, we 
must try to consider it in every sense and to follow it up 
everywhere, 

ARISTES. But we shall never exhaust the subject of Provi- 
dence if we follow it up into the heavens. 


ON METAPHYSICS 299 


THEODORE. Yes, if we follow it up there; but we shall 
soon lose sight of it. We shall be obliged, Aristes, to pass 
over lightly what ought to detain us most, whether on 
account of the magnificence of the work, or on account of the 
wisdom of its management. For the providence of God over 
His Church is an abyss in which even the mind illumined by 
faith can hardly discover anything. But let us come to the 
point. 


I. You know, Aristes, that man is composed of two substances, 


soul and body, ‘the modifications of which are reciprocal as a 


result of the general laws, which are the causes of the conjunc- 
tion of these two natures; and you are not ignorant of the fact 
that these laws are nothing but the constant and ever effective 
volitions of the Creator. Let us just glance at the wisdom of 
these laws. 

At the moment a torch is lighted, or the sun rises, it sheds 
light in all directions, or rather it pushes the matter of its 
environment in all directions. The surfaces of bodies being 
variously situated, they reflect the light in different ways, or 
rather, they modify in different ways the pressure which the 
sun causes. (Picture this to yourself in any way you please, 
it matters not at present. For my part I believe that these 
modifications of pressure consist merely in vibrations or dis- 
turbances which the subtle matter receives from that which 
touches it lightly in gliding incessantly over the surface of the 
bodies between it and these same bodies.) All these vibra- 
tions or modes of pressure, alternatively more or less strong, 
spread out and are communicated in circular fashion from all 
sides, and in an instant because there is no void. Thus, so soon 
as one opens one’s eyes, all the rays of light reflected from the 
surface of bodies, and entering through the apple of the eye, 
disperse in the humours of the eye in order to become united 
again in the optic nerve. (The mechanism of the eye is a 
wonderful thing when considered in relation to the action of 
light, but with this we cannot deal at present. Those who wish 
to study this subject can consult the Dioptric of M. Descartes.) 
The optic nerve is thus affected in several different ways by the 
diverse vibrations of matter which freely come into contact 
with it, the affections of this nerve are communicated 
to that part of the brain with which the soul is closely united. 


300 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


Whence it happens, in consequence of the laws of conjunction 
of soul and body,— 


II. rx. That we are given warning of the presence of 
objects. For, though bodies are in themselves invisible, the 
sensations of colour which we have in ourselves, and even despite 
ourselves on the occasion of their presence, make us believe 
that we see them as they are, because the operation of God 
upon us has nothing sensuous in it. And since colours affect 
us lightly, we attribute them to objects, instead of looking upon 
them as sensations which belong to us. In this way we judge 
that objects exist, and that they are white and black, red 
and blue—in a word, such as we see them. 

2. Although the different kinds of the reflected light of objects 
consist merely in vibrations of pressure more or less rapid, 
nevertheless the sensations of colour which correspond to these 
vibrations or modifications of light have essential differences, 
in order that by this means we may distinguish objects from 
one another the more easily. 

3. Thus, through the sensible different kinds of colours which 
determine in an exact manner the intelligible parts which we 
find in the idea of space or extension, we discern in one glance 
an infinity of different objects, their magnitude, figure, situ- 
ation, movement or rest; all this with great exactness so far 
as the preservation of life is concerned, but otherwise con- 
fusedly and very imperfectly; for we must always remember 
that the senses are not given to us in order to reveal to us the 
truth, or to indicate the exact relations subsisting amongst 
things, but in order to preserve our body and everything that 
may be of use to it. As everything that we see is not, for 
example, always either good or bad for our health, and as often 
two different objects may reflect the light in the same way 
(for are not many objects equally white or black ?), the sensa- 
tions that we have of colour hardly touch or affect us. They 
are of use to us in distinguishing objects rather than in uniting 
ourselves to or separating ourselves from them. It is to the 
objects that we refer these sensations, and not to the eyes which 
receive the impression of light. For we always refer our 
sensations to that a reference to which is conducive to the good 
of the body. We refer the pain of a pin-prick, not to the pin, 
but to the pricked finger. We refer heat, smell, taste, both 


ON METAPHYSICS 301 


to the organs and to objects. As to colour, it is referred to 
objects alone. It is clear that all this must be for the good of 
the body, and it is not necessary for me to explain it to you. 


III. This, Aristes, is what seems to be the simplest and most 
general aspect of the sensations of colour. Let us now just see 
how all this is accomplished ; for it seems to me that an infinite 
wisdom is necessary to regulate these details of the colours 
in such a way as to cause us to see near or distant objects 
almost in accordance with their magnitude. When I say dis- 
tant I do not mean that they are distant to an excessive 
degree; for when bodies are so small or so distant that they 
can do us neither good nor harm, they escape our notice. 

ARISTES. Assuredly, Theodore, an infinite wisdom is neces- 
sary in order to bring about at each twinkling of the eye this 
distribution of colours upon the idea which I have of space, 
in such a manner that out of it there should be formed, so to 
speak, within my soul a new world and a world which 
stands in a sufficiently clear relation with the world in which 
we dwell. But I doubt whether God is so exact in the sen- 
sations which He causes in us; for I know that the sun does not 
decrease in magnitude in proportion as it gets further away 
from the horizon, and yet it appears to me smaller. 

THEODORE. But at least you are sure that God is always 
exact in causing you to see the sun as becoming smaller in 
proportion as it gets further away from the horizon. This 
exactness means something, Aristes. 

ARISTES. I believe it does; but how does it come about ? 

THEODORE. It comes about because God, in consequence of 
these laws, gives us all at once those sensations of colours which 
we should give to ourselves if we knew optics as the Divine Being 
does, if we were thoroughly familiar with all the relations sub- 
sisting amongst the figures of the bodies which project them- 
selves into the interior of our eyes; for God only determines 
Himself to act upon our souls in any particular manner through 
the changes which take place in our body; He acts upon it as 
though He knew nothing of what takes place outside, by the 
knowledge which He has of what takes place in our organs. 
This is the principle; let us follow it up. 

The more distant an object is, the smaller is the image which 
is traced in the interior of the eye. Now, when the sun rises or 


302 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


sets, it appears further away from us than at noon, not only 
because we see a great deal of land between ourselves and the 
horizon where the sun is then, but also because the sky looks 
like a flattened spheroid. Hence the image of the rising 
sun in the interior of our eyes ought to be smaller than that of 
the sun when it has risen. But it is equal, or nearly equal ; 
hence the sun must appear larger when it is near the horizon 
than when it is elevated above the horizon. 

THEOTIMUS. I have made an experiment which proves the 
truth of what you are saying, namely, that the reason why the 
sun appears to change in magnitude is that it appears noticably 
to change its distance. I took a piece of glass covered with 
smoke in such a way as that looking through it I saw nothing 
but the sun, and I noticed that this apparent magnitude dis- 
appeared every time I looked at it through the glass, because, 
as the smoke shut out all the other objects between ourselves 
and the horizon, I could no longer sensibly see the distance 
beyond which I could place the sun. 

ARISTES. Would not this be due to the fact that the glass, 
darkened by the smoke, admitted only a few rays to the eye? 

THEOoTIMUS. No, Aristes, for when far above the horizon the 
sun always appeared to me to be of the same magnitude, whether 
I looked at it through the glass or not. 

ARISTES. That is conclusive. 


IV. THEODORE. Observe then, Aristes, that although you are 
persuaded that the sun is not smaller at noon than in the evening, 
it nevertheless appears to you much smaller, and learn from this 
fact that the sensation of a luminous circle which represents this 
star to you comes to indicate exactly a certain magnitude, only 
by reference to the colours of all the objects which we see between 
ourselves and it, since it is the sensuous view of those objects 
which makes us believe it distant. Learn from this also that 
all apparent magnitudes, not only of the sun, but generally 
of everything that we see, ought to be regulated by reasoning 
similar to that which I have just submitted to you, in order to 
account for the different appearances of the magnitude of the 
sun; and comprehend if you can the wisdom of the Creator, who, 
without hesitation on your aprt, so soon as your eyes are open, 
gives you an infinity of different sensations of colour, of an in- 
finity of different objects,—sensations which indicate to you their 


OE EE AE LLL READ Ni, AG LS RA ATA Rig DS SORE CRG OAL OA LAP OA 


SSS er 


ON METAPHYSICS 303 


difference and their magnitude, not in proportion to the 
difference and the size of the images which are traced in your 
eyes, but—and this is to be noted—determined by the most 
exact optical reasons possible. 

ARISTES. In this I do not wonder so much at the wisdom, 
accuracy and uniformity of the Creator as at the stupidity of 
those philosophers who imagine that it is the soul itself 
which forms ideas of all the objects of our environment. I 
admit, nevertheless, that an infinite wisdom is necessary in 
order to effect within our soul, as soon as we open our eyes, that 
distribution of colours which partially reveals to us how the 
world is made. But I would that our senses never deceived 
us, at least in matters of importance, and not in so palpable 
a way. The other day, as I was walking quickly down by the 
river, it appeared to me as though the trees on the shore were 
moving, and I have a friend who often sees things turning in 
front of him so that he cannot keep upright. These are very 
palpable and troublesome illusions. | 


V. THEODORE. God was unable, Aristes, to contrive things 
better if He willed to act upon us by means of certain general 
laws; for you must remember the principle which I have been 
indicating to you. The occasional causes of that which is 
to take place in the soul are to be found only in what takes 
place in the body, since it is the soul and the body which God 
has willed to join together. Thus, God can be determined to act 
upon our soul in any particular manner only by the different 
changes which occurin the body. He must not act upon it as 
though He knew what is taking place outside us, but as though 
He knew of all the things of our environment only through the 
knowledge which He has of what is taking place in our organs. 
Once again, Aristes, this is the principle. Imagine that your 
soul knows exactly of everything new that is taking place in its 
body and that it gives itself all those feelings or sensations 
which are best adapted to further the preservation of life ; 
that will be exactly what God does in it. + 

You are walking, let us say, and your soul has an inner feeling 
of the movements which are taking place at the moment in 
your body. Accordingly, though the traces of the objects within 
your eyes shift their position, your soul sees those objects as 
immobile. But supposing you are in a ship. You do not feel 


304 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


that you are being moved, since the movement of the ship 
effects no change in your body which could serve as an indica- 
tion to you. The whole shore ought, therefore, to appear to you 
to be moving, since the images of the objects within your eyes 
keep on changing their position continually. 

Similarly, if you bend your head, or turn your eyes, or look 
at a clock from between your legs, you ought not to see it 
turned upside down; for, though the image of the clock be 
inverted in your eyes, or rather in your brain, since the images 
of objects within the eyes are always inverted, your soul, being 
aware of the position of your body through the changes effected 
by this position in your brain, must conclude that the clock is 
upright. 

Now, once more, God in consequence of the laws of the 
conjunction of soul and body gives us sensations of objects in 
the same way as our own soul would give them, if it could 
reason in an exact manner about the knowledge which it should 
have of what takes place in the body or in the principal part 
of the brain. But note that the knowledge we have of the 
magnitude or situation of objects does not help us at all in 
rectifying our sensations, unless this knowledge is sensuous and 
is acquired at the moment through some change then taking 
place in the brain ; for, though I know that the sun is not larger 
in the evening or morning than at noon, it appears to me larger 
all the same ; though I know the shore is not moving, it never- 
theless seems to me to be moving ; though I know that a certain 
medicine is good for me, I nevertheless find it unpleasant ; 
and so on with the other feelings or sensations, because God 
regulates the sensations which He gives to us only by the 
activity of the occasional cause which He has established for 
that purpose, that is to say, only by the changes of that prin- 
cipal part of our body to which our soul is immediately united. 
Now, it happens occasionally that the flow of the animal spirits 
is so impetuous and irregular that it prevents the present change 
in the arrangement of the nerves and muscles from being com- 
municated to this principal part of the brain, and then every- 
thing is upside down, one sees two objects instead of one, one 
can no longer maintain one’s equilibrium in order to remain 
upright, and this is perhaps what happens to your friend. Yet 
what would you have? The laws of the union of body and soul 
are infinitely wise and always exactly followed; but the occa- 


Csr a = 


ON METAPHYSICS 305 


sional cause which determines the efficacy of those laws often 
fails at the moment of need because the laws of the communi- 
cation of movements are not in submission to our wills. 
ARISTES. What order and wisdom there is in the laws of 
the conjunction of soul and body! As soon as we open our 
eyes we see an infinity of different objects and their different 
relations without any effort on our part. Assuredly, nothing 
is more marvellous, though no one reflects upon the matter. 


VI. THEODORE. Through this means God not only dis- 
closes His works to us, but He unites us to them in a thousand 
different ways. If, for example, I see a child about to fall, 
the mere fact of my seeing it, the mere affection of my optic 
nerve, will let loose in my brain certain contrivances which 
will make me step forward to help him and to cry out to 
others to help him; and, at the same time, my soul will be 
touched and moved, as it ought to be for the good of the human 
race. If I look into a man’s face, I can see whether he is sad 
or happy, whether he esteems or despises me, whether he wishes 
me good or ill—all this through certain movements of eyes 
and lips which have no relation with what they signify; for 
when a dog shows me his teeth I conclude that he is angry, but 
though a man were to show me his teeth I should not think 
that he wished to bite me. A man’s laugh inspires me with 
confidence, the bark of a dog with fear. Painters who wish to 
represent the passions are often embarrassed ; they often take one 
expression of the face, or one grimace, for another. But when a 
man is moved by some passion, those who look at him notice 
this quite well, though perhaps they do not notice whether 
his lips are raised or not, whether his nose turns up or not, 
whether his eyes open or close. That is so because God joins 
us together by means of the laws of the conjunction of soul and 
body ; and not only men with men but also each creature with 
all else that may be of use to it, each in its own way ; for if I see, 
for example, my dog fawning upon me, i.e. wagging his tail, bend- 
ing his back, lowering his head, the sight of this binds me to him 
and gives rise in my soul not only to a kind of friendship but 
even to certain movements in my body which in turn also 
attach him to me. And what occasions the love of a man for 
his dog, or the fidelity of the dog towards his master, is a little 
light liberating certain contrivances in the organisms combined 

' 20 


306 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


by the wisdom of the Creator in such a way that they should 
mutually conserve one another. This is common to both of them ; 
but man has, besides the mechanism of the body, also a soul, 
and consequently feelings and movements corresponding to the 
changes that occur in his body; the dog, on the other hand, 
is a pure mechanism, whose movements, which are adapted to 
their ends, ought to make us admire the infinite intelligence 
of Him who constructed it. 

ARISTES. I understand, Theodore, that the laws of the 
conjunction of soul and body serve not only to unite our mind 
to a certain portion of matter, but also to the rest of the uni- 
verse, to certain parts, of course, much more than to others, 
according as they are the more needed by us. My soul diffuses 
itself, so to speak, in my body by means of pleasureand pain. It 
separates itself therefrom by means of the other less vivid feelings. 
And through light and colour it reaches everywhere even to 
the skies. It interests itself even in what takes place there. It 
examines the celestial movements, it is pained by, or rejoices in, 
the phenomena which it observes, and brings them all into 
relation with itself as though it had a right to all created 
things. Truly wonderful is this chain of connections ! 


VII. THEODORE. Consider rather the consequences of these 
laws in the establishment of societies, in the education of children, 
in the growth of the sciences, in the formation of the Church. 
How is it that you know me? You only see my face, a certain 
arrangement of matter visible only through its colours. I dis- 
turb the air with my words. This air strikes your ear and 
you become aware of what I am thinking. We not only train 
our children as we do horses and dogs, we also inspire them 
with sentiments of honour and honesty. In your books you have 
the opinions of philosophers and the history of all the centuries ; 
but without the laws of the conjunction of soul and body your 
whole library would be of no greater use than so much black 
and white paper. Follow these laws in the case of religion. 
How is it that you are a Christian ? Youare a Christian because 
you are not deaf. It is through our ears that faith is poured 
into our hearts. It is because of the miracles we have seen 
that we are certain of those which we do not see. It is through the 
power which these laws give us that the minister of Jesus Christ 
is able to move his tongue in order to preach the gospel and 


ON METAPHYSICS 807 


to absolve us from our sins. It is evident that these laws are 
of paramount importance in religion, morality, in the sciences, 
in societies, for the good of the whole and for the good of each. 
It follows that they constitute one of the most important means 
of which God avails Himself, in the ordinary course of His 
providence, for the maintenance of the universe and the realisation 
of His designs. 


VIII. Now, consider how many relations and combinations 
of relations had to be discerned in order to establish these 
wonderful laws, and in order so to apply them to their effects 
as to make all the consequences of these laws the best and the 
most worthy of God. Do not consider these laws only in relation 
to the preservation of the human species. That is as yet infi- 
nitely beyond us. But do not despair: compare them with all 
the things to which they are related, however despicable they 
may appear to you. Why, for example, have not wheat and 
barley small wings such as thistles and teasels possess, so that 
they might be transported and scattered over the fields by 
the wind? Is it not because God foresaw that men who 
cleared those fields of thistles would take enough trouble to sow 
wheat in them? How is it that the dog has so fine a sense of 
smell for the odours emitted by animals and that he cannot 
smell flowers? Is that not so because God foresaw that man 
and this animal would go together to the chase? If God, 
when He created plants and animals, took into consideration 
the use men would make of the power which they have as 
as a result of the laws of the conjunction of soul and 
body, assuredly He would not have neglected anything needed to 
make these laws have consequences advantageous to society and 
religion. Judge, then, of the incomprehensible wisdom of God’s 
Providence in the establishment of these laws as you have 
judged of it in the case of the first impression of movement 
which he communicated to matter when he formed the universe. 

ARISTES. The mind loses itself in reflections of this sort. 

THEOTIMUS. That is true; but it does not fail to apprehend 
that the wisdom of God in His general providence is incompre- 
hensible in every way. 


IX. THEODORE. Let us, then, continue. The mind of 
man is united to his body in such a manner that through his 


308 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


body he is connected with everything in his environment, not 
only with sensible objects, but also with invisible substances, 
since men are attached to one another and joined together by 
means of the mind as well as of the body, all this in conse- 
quence of general laws of which God avails Himself in govern- 
ing the world; and this is what is marvellous in Providence. 
The mind of man is also united to God, to the eternal Wisdom, 
the universal Reason which enlightens all intelligent beings. And 
it is united to Him also through the general laws of which our 
attention is the occasional cause, determining their eficacy. The 
disturbances which arise in my brain are the occasional or 
natural causes of my sensations. But the occasional cause of 
the presence of ideas to my mind is my attention. I can 
think of whatever I like. It depends upon me whether I shall 
examine the subject upon which we are engaged or any other 
subject ; but it does not depend upon me whether I shall feel 
pleasure, hear music, or see such and sucha colour. That is so 
because we are not made to know the relations subsisting between 
the objects of sense and our body; for it would not be apt that 
the soul should be compelled, in order to preserve life, to 
attend to everything that may deprive us of life. It was 
necessary that it should be able to discern any such threatening 
object by the short but sure testimony of instinct or sensation, so 
that it might devote itself entirely to the fulfilment of its duties 
to God, and to the search after the true goods, the goods of 
the spirit. It is true that at present our feelings introduce 
trouble and confusion into our ideas, and that on that account 
we do not always think of what we wish to think. But that 
is a consequence of the Fall, and if God permitted the Fall it 
was because He knew that it would give occasion to the sacrifice 
of Jesus Christ, from which He derives more glory than from 
the preservation of the first man. Besides, since Adam had 
all the assistance necessary for his preservation, God was not 
constrained to give him that predisposing grace which is suitable 
only for a weak and feeble nature. But this is not the time 
to examine the reasons why God permitted the Fall. 


X. It is then our attention which is the occasional or natural 
cause of the presence of ideas to our mind in consequence of 
the general laws of its union with the universal Reason. And 
God was bound to arrange it thus in accordance with His 


ON METAPHYSICS 309 


design of making us perfectly free and capable of deserving 
heaven ; for it is clear that if the first man had not been master 
of his ideas by means of his attention, his inattention would 
not have been voluntary,—that inattention which was the first 
cause of his disobedience. Since we cannot love except through 
our love of the good, we determine ourselves always to that 
which appears to us to be the best at the moment when we 
determine ourselves. It follows that if we were never masters 
of our attention, or if our attention were not the natural 
cause of our ideas, we should neither be free nor in a position 
to merit freedom, as we should not even be able to refuse our 
consent, seeing that we should not have the power to consider 
the reason which might induce us to do so. Now, God desired 
that we should be free, not only because this quality is 
necessary for us in order that we should merit heaven for 
which we were made, but also because He desired to make the 
wisdom of His providence shine forth, as also His quality of 
searching all hearts, thus using in a happy way both free causes 
and necessary causes in the realisation of His designs. 

For you must know that God establishes all societies, that 
He governs all the nations, the Jewish people, the Church of 
the present and the Church of the future, by the general laws of 
the union of spirits with the eternal Wisdom. It is by the aid 
of this Wisdom that sovereigns reign happily and lay down 
excellent laws. ‘‘ By me kings reign and princes decree justice.” ! 
It is, indeed, by consulting it that the wicked succeed in 
their pernicious designs; for in consequence of the general laws 
one can make use of the light of Reason to further injustice. 
If a good bishop watches over his flock, if he sanctifies it, if God 
makes use of him in order to put certain people among the 
elect, it is partly due to the fact that this minister of Jesus 
Christ consults Reason through his attention to the order of 
his duties. And if, on the contrary, a miserable wretch cor- 
rupts the minds and hearts of those who look to him for guid- 
ance, if God permits him to be the cause of their ruin, it is 
partly due to the fact that this minister of the devil abuses 
the light which he receives from God in consequence of the 
natural laws. The angels, all the blessed spirits, and even the 
saintly manhood of Jesus Christ, though each in a different 
manner, are all united to the eternal Wisdom. Their attention 


t Prov. vill. 15. 


810 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


is the occasional and natural cause of their knowledge. Now, 
Jesus Christ governs souls, while the angels have power over 
bodies. God makes use of Jesus in order to sanctify His Church, 
just as He made use of the angels in order to guide the Jewish 
people. Since, therefore, all the blessed spirits, even more than 
ourselves, always consult the eternal Wisdom in order to do 
anything which does not conform to the order of things, it is 
clear that God makes use of the general laws of the union of 
spirits with the infinite Reason in order to carry into effect all 
the designs which He has entrusted to intelligent beings. He 
even avails Himself of the malice of demons, and of the use which 
He foresaw with certainty that they would make of the natural 
light which was left to them. Not that God acts at every 
moment by means of particular volitions, but that He only 
laid down certain laws for certain circumstances, because He 
knew what wonderful effects would follow from them ; for His 
foresight has no limits, and His foresight is the rule of His 
providence. 


XI. ArRisTEs. It seems to me, Theodore, that you are con- 
sidering the wisdom of Providence only in the establishment 
of general laws and in the interlinking of causes with their 
effects, making all creatures act in accordance with their 
nature, the free creatures freely, and the necessitated according 
to the power which they have in consequence of the general 
laws. You want me to admire and adore the impenetrable 
profundity of God’s foresight in the infinitely infinite combina- 
tions which He had to make in order to choose from out an 
infinity of ways in which the universe could be produced that 
way which He had to follow in order to act in the most divine | 
manner possible. Assuredly, Theodore, this is the most beautiful 
feature in the action of Providence, but not the most agreeable 
one. This infinite foresight is the basis of that generality and 
uniformity of procedure which bear the character of the wisdom 
and immutability of God; but it does not, it seems to me, bear 
the character of His goodness towards men, nor of the severity of 
His justice against the wicked. It is not possible for God, acting 
by means of a general providence, to punish those who do us 
any injustice, nor to provide for all our needs. And how can > 
we be content so long as something is still lacking? Thus, 
Theodore, I admire your Providence, but I am not quite satisfied © 


~~ a a 


ON METAPHYSICS 311 


with it. It is excellent for God, but not altogether good for 
us; for I want God to provide for all His creatures. 

THEODORE. He does provide for them quite abundantly. 
Do you want me to set forth the blessings of the Creator ? 

ARISTES. I know that God bestows upon us thousands of 
blessings every day. It would seem that the whole world exists 
only for us. 

THEODORE. What more do you want ? 

ARISTES. That we should be in want of nothing. God has 
made all things for our sake, yet So-and-so has no bread. 
A Providence that would give equal shares to all equally de- 
serving creatures, and that would distribute good and ill 
exactly according to deserts, would be a veritable Providence. 
Of what avail is the infinite number of stars? What does 
it matter whether the movements of the heavens are regu- 
lated so precisely ? Let God leave all this and think a little more 
of us. The earth is devastated by the injustice and malignity 
of its inhabitants. Why does not God cause Himself to be 
feared ? It seems that He does not interfere with the details 
of our affairs. The simplicity and generality of His ways has 
suggested this thought to my mind. 

THEODORE. I understand you, Aristes, You are acting the 
part of those who will have no Providence, and who imagine 
that upon this earth it is chance which makes and regulates 
all things. And I understand that in this way you want to 
dispute the generality and uniformity of God’s action in the 
government of the world, because this action does not accom- 
modate itself to our needs orinclinations. But pray observe that I 
am arguing from admitted facts and from the idea of the infinitely 
perfect Being; for after all the sun rises indifferently upon the just 
and the unjust, it sometimes scorches the fields of good people 
whilst it renders fertile those of the unbelievers. Men, in a word, 
are not wretched in proportion to their guilt; and this fact it is 
which we have to reconcile with a Providence worthy of the 
infinitely perfect Being. 

Hailstones, Aristes, lay waste the harvests of a good man. 
Either this sad effect is due to natural consequences of general 
laws, or God produces it by a particular providence. If! God 
produces this effect by a particular providence, then, so 
far from providing for all, He positively wills and brings it 
about that the best men of the country lack bread. It will, 


312 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


therefore, be better to maintain that the sad effect is a natural 
result of general laws. And this, too, is what is commonly 
meant when it is said that God has permitted such-and-such a mis- 
fortune. Again, you agree that to govern the world by means 
of general laws is a procedure beautiful and great and worthy 
of the divine attributes. You maintain only that it does not 
sufficiently bear the character of His paternal goodness towards 
the good, and of the severity of His justice towards the wicked. 
You do not take note of the misery of the good and the 
prosperity of the infidels; for, things being as we see they are, 
I submit that a particular providence would not bear at all 
the character of His goodness and justice, since very often the 
just are overwhelmed with misfortune, while the wicked are 
loaded with favours. But granting that God’s action must 
bear the character of His wisdom as well as of His goodness 
and justice, I do not find, though at present misfortune and 
fortune are not in proportion to deserts, any hardness in His 
general providence. For, in the first place, I submit that, 
out of an infinity of possible combinations of causes with 
their effects, God chose that which harmonised in the most 
beneficial manner the physical with the moral, and that the 
hailstorm which it was foreseen would fall upon the land of a 
good man was not one of God’s motives in making His 
choice, but rather the hailstorm which He foresaw would fall 
upon the land of a wicked man. I say one of the motives. 
Notice the significence of this term; for if God afflicts the 
just, it is because He wishes to test them and make them 
deserve His reward; therein lies His real motive. I maintain, 
in the second place, that all men being sinners, no one deserves 
that God should abandon the simplicity and generality of 
His ways in order to apportion good and harm to merits and 
demerits; that sooner or later God will deal with each 
according to his deeds, at least on the day when He will come 
to judge the living and the dead, and when to punish them He 
will establish general laws which will endure for all eternity. 


XII. Nevertheless, Aristes, do not imagine me to hold that 
God never acts by means of particular volitions, and that all 
that He does now is to follow the natural laws, which He has 
laid down once and for all. I hold merely that God never 
departs from the simplicity of His ways and the uniformity — 


ON METAPHYSICS 8138 


of His procedure without important reasons. For, the more 
general His providence is, the more it bears the character of 
His attributes. 

ARISTES. But when does He have these important reasons ? 
Perhaps He never has them. 

THEODORE. God has these important reasons, when the glory 
which He can derive from the perfection of His work counter- 
balances that which He would receive from the uniformity of His 
action. He has these important reasons when what He owes to 
His immutability is of equal weight with, or of less weight than, 
what He owes to another of His attributes. Ina word, He has 
these reasons when, in departing from the general laws which 
He has laid down, He is acting as much or more in accordance 
with what He is than in following them; for God always acts 
in accordance with what He is. Inevitably He follows the 
immutable order of His own perfections, because it is in His 
own substance that He finds His law and because He cannot 
but do justice to Himself and act for the sake of His glory 
in the sense which I explained the other day.t If you 
ask me when it happens that God in departing from general 
laws acts as much or more in accordance with what He 
is than in following them, my reply is that I do not know. 
But I know quite well that this happens sometimes. I know 
it, I say, because my faith teaches me that it is so; for reason, 
which shows me that this is possible, does not give me any 
assurance that it actually happens. 

ARISTES. I see what you mean, Theodore, and I know of 
nothing more in conformity with reason and even with experience ; 
for really we see quite distinctly from all the effects which are 
known to us that they have their natural causes, and that, there- 
fore, God governs the world in accordance with the general laws 
which He has established for this purpose. 


XIII. THEotTimus. This is true, but nevertheless Scripture 
is full of miracles which God performed for the Jewish people ; 
and I do not think that He neglects His Church so much as 
not to depart in its favour from the generality of His procedure. 

THEODORE. Assuredly, Theotimus, God performs infinitely 
more miracles for His Church than for the synagogue. The Jewish 
people were accustomed to see what are called miracles. A pro- 

+ Dialogue IX, 


814 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


digious quantity of them was necessary, since the abundance of 
their land and the prosperity of their arms were connected with 
their care in observing the commandments of the law; for it 
is not likely that the physical and the moral could be har- 
monised so exactly that Judea should always be fertile in pro- 
portion as its inhabitants were good. Thus, we get an infinity 
of miracles among the Jews.' But I believe that many more 
miracles take place amongst us, not in order to apportion 
temporal good and evil to our deeds, but in order to freely 
distribute the true goods or the aid necessary in their acquisi- 
tion ; this is accomplished, nevertheless, without God departing 
every moment from the generality of His procedure. It is 
necessary that I should explain this to you, for it is assuredly 
what is most wonderful in Providence. 


XIV. Man, being a complex of mind and body, stands in need 
of two kinds of goods, those of the mind and those of the body. 
God had provided these goods in abundance through the estab- 
lishment of general laws of which up to now I have been 
speaking. For not only was the first man placed in a terrestrial 
paradise where he found fruit in abundance, and one among 
others which was capable of rendering him immortal, but his 
body was so well shaped and so submissive to his mind, that 
in consequence of the general laws he could enjoy all those 
goods without deviating from the true good. In another way 
he was united to the universal Reason; and his attention, over 
which he was absolute master, was the occasional or natural 
cause of his knowledge. Never did his feelings or sensations 
confuse his ideas against his will; for he was exempt from that 
craving which incessantly tempts the mind to renounce reason 
and follow the passions. He was, then, well provided for, both 
so far as the mind and the body were concerned; for he knew 
the true good already and could not lose it. He felt the goods 
of the body and was able to enjoy them ; all this in consequence 
of the general laws of the union of the soul on the one hand 
with the body, and on the other with the universal Reason ; 
and these two unions were not in conflict with one another, 
the body being in submission to the mind. 

But man having fallen, he found himself all of a sudden badly 


t By miracles I understand effects depending upon general laws which are 
not naturally known to us. Cf. the second letter of my Réponse au Vol, I, 
des Réflexions Philosophiques et théologiques de M. Arnauld, 


ON METAPHYSICS 815 


provided with these two kinds of goods; for as the order, which 
God follows inviolably, does not permit that for the benefit 
of a rebel there should be exceptions every moment to the 
general laws of the communications of movements, it was a neces- 
sity that the influence of objects should be communicated to the 
principal part of the brain, and that the soul should be affected 
by it, in consequence of the laws of the conjunction of soul 
and body. Now the mind, disturbed despite itself by hunger, 
thirst, fatigue, pain, or a thousand other feelings, can neither 
love nor seek as is befitting after the true goods; and, instead of 
peacefully enjoying the goods of the body, the least want 
makes it unhappy. It results from this that man rebels against 
God; having lost the authority which he had over his body, 
he finds himself, through the loss of this power alone, deprived 
of all the goods with which Providence had provided him. Let 
us now see how God is going to save him from this unfortunate 
state of things without doing anything contrary to His justice, 
and without changing the general laws which He has established. 


XV. Before the Fall man submitted and had to submit to 
God alone; for naturally the angels had no authority over spirits 
who were their equals; they had power only over bodies, or 
inferior substances. Now, as Adam was master of whatever 
took place in the principal part of his brain, the demons, even 
if they could disturb the economy of his body by means of the 
influence of objects or otherwise, would not have been able to 
disturb him or render him unhappy. But having lost nearly 
all the power which he had over his body—for so much was left 
to him as was necessary for the preservation of the human race, 
which God did not desire to destroy because of the Redeemer,— 
man found himself necessarily subjected to angels, who can now 
disturb and tempt him by making traces in his body adapted to 
excite in his mind grievous thoughts. Seeing that man was sinning, 
so to speak, at the direction of the Devil and was surrounded 
by an infinity of creatures who could cause his death, deprived 
as he was of all help, God put him under the guidance of the 
angels, him and his whole posterity, and mainly the nation 
out-of which the Messiah was to be born. Thus, you see that 
God distributes temporal goods among men despite their 
being sinners, not by a blind providence but by the action of an 
intelligent nature. As for the goods of the spirit, or that inner 


316 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


grace which counter-balances the efforts of passion, and which 
delivers us from the captivity of the Fall, you know that God 
gives them to us through the sovereign priest of the true good, 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Assuredly, Aristes, this action of God is worthy of admira- 
tion. Through sin man became the slave of the Devil, the 
most evil of creatures, and dependent upon the body, the 
vilest of substances. God subjected him to the angels both 
for the sake of justice and out of kindness. In so doing He pro- 
tected us against the Devil and shared out temporal good and 
evil according to our deeds, as they were good or evil. But 
observe, He changed nothing in the general laws of motion 
nor even in the laws of the conjunction of the soul with 
the body, or with the universal Reason; for, after all, in the 
supreme power which God gave to Jesus Christ as man, 
extending generally over all things, and in the power which 
the angels have over all that concerns temporal good or evil, 
God did not in the very least depart from the simplicity of 
His ways and the generality of His providence, because He only 
communicated His power to His creatures through the establish- 
ment of certain general laws. Follow me, I beg of you. 


XVI. The power which the angels possess extends only 
over bodies; for if they act upon our minds it is because of 
the conjunction of soul and body. Now, nothing takes place 
in the body except by movement, and there is a contradiction 
in supposing that the angels could produce movement as real 
causes.! Therefore, the power of the angels over bodies, and 
consequently over us, is due to nothing but a general law which 
God has laid down for Himself to move bodies at the will of 
the angels. Accordingly, God does not depart from the generality 
of His providence when He makes use of the agency of the 
angels in governing the nations, since the angels act only by 
the efficacy and in consequence of a general law. 

Similar remarks apply to Jesus Christ as man, as Head of 
the Church, as Supreme Priest of the true good. His power 
is infinitely greater than that of the angels. It extends over 
all, even over hearts and minds. But it is through His 
intercession that our Mediator exercises His power: ‘‘ Semper 
vivens ad interpellandum pro nobis ’’2 (‘‘ seeing He ever liveth 

1 Dialogue VII, 6 sqq.. 2 Heb, vil. 25. 


ON METAPHYSICS 317 


to make intercession for us’’), by desires, namely, which are 
always efficacious because they are always heard: “‘ Ego autem 
sciebam quia semper me audis ”’ ! (‘and I knew that Thou hearest 
me always’’). In truth, it is not by a moral intercession 
resembling that of aman who intercedes for another, but by an 
intercession which is powerful and never failing in virtue of the 
general law which God has laid down never to refuse anything 
to His Son ; by an intercession resembling that of the practical 
desires which we have to move our arm, to walk, to speak. For 
all the desires of men are powerless in themselves, they are 
efficacious only through the divine power; they do not act 
independently ; they are, at bottom, merely prayers. But as 
God is immutable in His action, and as He follows strictly the 
laws which He has laid down, we have the power to move our 
arm, and the Head of the Church has the power to sanctify 
it, because, for our good, God has laid down the laws of the 
conjunction of soul and body, and because He has promised His 
Son to hearken to all His desires, according to the utterance 
of Jesus Christ Himself: “‘ All power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth;’’2 and to what was said by His Father 
after His resurrection: ‘“‘ Ask of me, and I will give thee the 
uttermost part of the earth for thy possession.’ 3 


XVII. AristES. I am convinced, Theodore, that creatures 
have no power of their own, and that God only communicates 
His power to them through the establishment of some general 
laws. I have the power to move my arm; but I have it in 
consequence of the general laws of the conjunction of soul and 
body, and because God, being immutable, is constant in His 
decrees. God gave to the guiding angel of the Jewish people 
the power to punish and reward that people because He desired 
that the volitions of the angel should be followed by their effects. 
I agree, but it is God Himself who issued commands to this 
agent as to all that he should do. God gave supreme power 
to Jesus Christ, but He prescribed to Him all that He should do. 
It is not God who obeys the angels; it is the angels who obey 
God. And Jesus Christ teaches us that He told us nothing 
on His own account, and that His Father had indicated to Him 
everything that He should tell us. Jesus Christ interceded, 
but it was for those whom His Father had placed among the elect. 

t John, xi. 42. a Matt, xxviii, 18. 3 Pew ii, +3, 


318 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


He disposes of everything in His Father’s house, but He does 
not dispose of anything of His chief. Thus, God does depart 
from the generality of His providence ; for, though He executes 
the will of Jesus Christ and of the angels in consequence of 
general laws, He gives rise to those volitions in them by means 
of particular inspirations. For this there is no general law. 

THEODORE. Are you so sure of it, Aristes? Assuredly, 
if God commands, in particular fashion, the saintly soul of the 
Saviour and the angels to form all the desires which they have 
in relation to us, God departs in doing so from the generality 
of His providence.t But do you think that the guiding angel 
of the Jewish people had need of much light in order to govern 
that people, and that the true Solomon had to be united in a 
particular manner to the eternal Wisdom in order to succeed 
in the construction of His great work ? 

ARISTES. Yes, certainly. 

THEODORE. Why, the most stupid and least enlightened 
could succeed just as well as the wisest of men, if everything 
that he has to do, and the way in which it ought to be done, 
is indicated to him, especially if all that he has to do is to form 
certain desires under certain circumstances. Now, according 
to you neither the guiding angel of this people nor Jesus Christ 
Himself desired anything but what was already ordained by 
His Father in detail. I do not, then, see that for such work He 
needed an extraordinary wisdom. But now tell me, pray, in 
what this supreme power which Jesus Christ received consisted. 

ARISTES. It consisted in the fact that all His prayers were 
hearkened unto. 

THEODORE. But, Aristes, if Jesus Christ can desire nothing 
except by the express command of His Father, if His desires are 
not in His power, how can He be capable of receiving any real 
power? You have the power to move your arm; but that is 
because it depends upon you whether you shall move it or not. 
Cease to be the master of your will, and forthwith you lose all 
your power. Is not this evident? Be careful, then, not to 
insult the wisdom of the Saviour and not to deprive Him of 
His power. Do not take away from Him the glory which He © 
ought to derive from the part which He plays in the construc- 


: This is explained at great length in my Réponses 4 M. Arnauid, chiefly 
in the Réponse @ la Dissertation and in my first Letive regarding Vol. III. of 
his Réflexions. 


Te 


SS a ee a 


ON METAPHYSICS 319 


tion of the eternal temple. If He has nothing to do but to form 
impotent desires enjoined upon Him by particular commands, 
His work could not, it seems to me, do Him much honour. 


XVIII. Aristes. No, Theodore; but then God derives from 
it all the more glory. 

THEODORE. If that be so, you are right; for God ought to 
derive more glory from the magnificence of the eternal temple 
than the wise Solomon who constructed it. But let us 
see. Let us compare with one another the two- principal 
modes of God’s providence, in order to ascertain which is the 
more worthy of the divine attributes. According to the first, 
God forms once and for all a certain design, independently of the 
means of its realisation. He chooses the architect and endows 
him with wisdom and intelligence. In addition, He indicates 
to him all the desires which he ought to have, and all the 
circumstances under which he ought to have them. And, finally, 
He Himself carries into effect in a very exact manner all 
the desires which He had ordered should arise. This is the 
idea which you have of God’s action, since you want Him 
to give rise by the help of particular volitions to all the 
desires of the saintly soul of Jesus Christ. And this is the idea 
which I have of it.t I believe that God, through His infinite 
foresight, having foreseen all the consequences of all the pos- 
sible laws which He could establish, has united His Word to 
such a human nature and under such circumstances that the 
work which was to follow from this union should do Him more 
honour than any other work produced in any other way. 
Furthermore, God having foreseen that acting in the saintly man- 
hood of our Mediator in very simple and very general ways,—I 
mean in ways most worthy of the divine attributes,—this soul of 
Jesus Christ would use its power in such a way, and with per- 
fect liberty would form a series of desires of such a character 
that these desires having been granted, and on account of His 
sacrifice deserving to be granted, the future Church which was 
to result from those desires would be greater and more perfect 
than it would have been had He chosen any other nature under 
any other circumstances, 

Compare then, I pray you, the idea which you have of Provi- 
dence with my idea of it. Which of the two shows more 
wisdom and foresight ? Mine bears the character of the most 

t Dialogue X. 


320 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


inscrutable quality of the Divinity which is to foresee the free 
acts of a creature under all sorts of circumstances. According 
to my idea, God makes use just as readily of free causes as of 
necessary ones in the realisation of His designs. According to 
my idea, God does not form His wise designs blindly. Before 
forming them, humanly speaking, He compares all the possible 
works with all the possible means necessary for their realisation. 
According to my idea, God must derive an infinite glory from 
the wisdom of His procedure ; but His glory does not in any way 
diminish that of the free causes to whom He has communicated 
His power without depriving them of their liberty. God gives 
them a share in the glory of His work and of theirs, by allow- 
ing them to act freely according to their nature, and in doing 
so He increases His own glory. For it is infinitely more diffi- 
cult to realise His designs with certainty by means of free 
causes than by means of necessary or necessitated causes, or 
causes which are insuperably determined by express com- 
mands and invincible impressions. 

ARISTES. Iagree, Theodore, that there is more of wisdom, and 
that God derives more glory, as does also the saintly manhood 
of our Mediator, according to this idea of Providence than 
according to any other. 

THEODORE. You might add that according to this idea 
one can comprehend that Jesus Christ did not recelve supreme 
power over all nations to no purpose, and why it was necessary 
to unite His saintly manhood with the eternal Wisdom in order 
that He might execute His work successfully. But it is sufficient 
that you should agree that one of these two modes of providence 
is wiser than the other ; for one must be quite an infidel to attri- 
bute to God the one that seems to be the less worthy of His 
attributes. 


XIX. ARISTES. I surrender, Theodore. But pray explain to 
me how it is that Jesus Christ Himself says that He is faith- 
fully executing the will of His Father. ‘‘ For I do always 
those things that are pleasing to Him,’’ He says ;! and in another 
place, ‘‘ For I spake not from Myself; but the Father which sent © 
Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say, and — 
what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life — 
eternal ; the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father — 

t John viii, 29. ) 


ON METAPHYSICS 321 


hath said unto me, so I speak.’?! How can you reconcile these 
passages, and a number of other similar passages, with the 
opinion that God does not give rise to all the desires of the 
human will of Jesus Christ by means of particular volitions ? 
This troubles me to some extent. 

THEODORE. I confess, Aristes, I do not understand how 
these passages can cause you any difficulty. Do you not know 
then that the Divine Word, in which the saintly humanity of 
Jesus Christ subsists, is the living law of the eternal Father ; 
and that it is contradictory to imagine that the human will of 
Jesus ever departs from this law? Tell me, pray, are you not 
certain, whenever you give alms, that you are doing the will 
of God? And if you were well assured that you had never done 
any but good deeds, could you not say without fear: ‘I do 
always those things that please Him ”’ ? 

ARISTES. Quite so, but there would still be a great deal of 
difference. 

THEODORE. A very great difference, certainly; for how do 
we know that we are doing the will of God when we give alms ? 
Perhaps because we have read in the written law that God 
commands us to help the afflicted, or because, entering into 
ourselves in order to consult the divine law, we have discovered 
in that eternal code, as St. Augustine calls it, that such is the 
will of the infinitely perfect Being. Know then, Aristes, that 
the divine Word is the law of God Himself, and the inviolable 
rule of His will, and that it is in it that the divine command- 
ments are to be found. ‘‘In Verbo unigenito Patris est omne 
mandatum,’’? says St. Augustine. Know that all minds, some 
more than others, are free to consult this law; know that their 
attention is the occasional cause which renders explicable to them 
all its commandments, in consequence of the general laws of their 
union with the infinite Reason; know that one cannot do 
anything which is not acceptable to God if one follows strictly 
what is written therein; know, above all, that the saintly 
humanity of the Saviour is more closely united with the law than 
the most enlightened of intelligent minds, and that it is through 
it that God has willed that obscurities should be cleared up. But 


1 John xiii. 49, 50. 

a Confess, xii. ch. 15. ‘‘ Mandatum Patris est Filius, Quomodo enim non 
est mandatum Patris, quod est Verbum Patris?’’ (Aug. Serm, 140, De 
Verbis Evang., n. 6). 

21 


322 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


note that He has not deprived Jesus Christ of His liberty or of the 
power of controlling that attention which is the occasional cause 
of all our knowledge. For, assuredly, the saintly soul of Jesus 
Christ, though under the direction of the Word, has the power 
of thinking whatever it pleases in order to accomplish the 
work for which it has been chosen by God, since God, in His 
character of scrutiniser of hearts, makes use of free causes just 
as readily as of necessary ones for the realisation of His 
designs.! 


XX. Nevertheless, Aristes, do not think that God never 
departs from the generality of His procedure in regard to the 
humanity of Jesus Christ, and that He only forms the desires 
of that saintly soul in consequence of the general laws of 
the union which it has with the Word. Whenever God 
foresees that our Mediator, out of an infinity of good deeds 
which He discovers in the Word as a result of His attention, 
ought to choose that the consequences of which will be the best 
possible, then God, who never departs from the simplicity of 
His ways without reason, does not determine Him by means of 
a particular volition to do what He foresees He will do ade- 
quately by the use of His liberty in consequence of general 
laws. But when the saintly soul of the Saviour, in consequence. 
of infinite and infinitely infinite comparisons of the combinations 
of all the effects which result or will result from His desires, 
can choose out of several good deeds—for He can only do 
good deeds—those which appear the best and the conse- 
quences of which nevertheless would not be so advantageous 
to His work, then, if God derives more glory from the beauty 
of His work than from the simplicity of His ways, He departs 
from this simplicity and acts in a particular and extraordinary 
manner in the humanity of the Saviour, so that the latter may 
will precisely that which will honour Him most. But though 
He acts in the humanity of Jesus Christ in this way, I believe 
that He never determines Him by means of invincible impres- 
sions of feeling, be they ever so infallible, in order that He 
may also have the greatest share possible in the glory of His 
work; for that action which does honour to the liberty and 
the power of Jesus Christ is even more glorious to God than any 


1 See the first Letive 4 M. Arnauld and the Réponse to his Dissertation © 
and the first Ledive written in reply to his. 


ON METAPHYSICS 823 


other, since it expresses His character of searching all hearts, 
and bears eloquent witness to the fact that He knows how to 
make use of free causes just as readily as of necessary ones 
in the realisation of His designs. 

ARISTES. I understand your contention perfectly. You 
think that God never departs without the best of reasons from 
the simplicity and generality of His ways; so that His providence 
does not resemble that of finite intelligences. You think that 
His foresight is the basis of the predestination of Jesus Christ 
Himself, and that, if He united His word to such a nature and 
under such circumstances, it is because He foresaw that the 
work which would result from this predestination, which is the 
cause and foundation of the predestination of all the elect in 
consequence of the general laws which make up the order of 
grace, would be the most beautiful that could be produced by 
the most divine means. You think that the work and the 
means jointly are together more worthy of God than any other 
work produced in any other way. 


XXI. THEODORE. Yes, Aristes, I think so because of the 
principle that God can act only for His own sake, only for 
the sake of the love which He bears to Himself, only by means 
of His will, which is not, as it is in our case, an impression 
coming from elsewhere and leading Him elsewhere—in a word, 
only for the sake of His glory, only in order to express the 
divine perfections which He loves with an unconquerable love, 
in the possession of which He glories and in which He delights 
by the necessity of His being. He wishes His work to bear 
in its beauty, and through its magnificence, the character of 
His excellence and His greatness, and His ways not to belie His 
infinite wisdom and immutability. If there are defects in His 
work, monstrosities among bodies and an infinity of sinners 
and damned ones, it is so because there can be no defects in His 
procedure, because He cannot form any designs independently 
of the means of their realisation. He has done for the beauty 
of the universe and the safety of men all that He could do, 
not absolutely, but acting as He ought to act, acting for the 
_ sake of His glory in accordance with all that He is; He loves 
all things in proportion as they are worthy of love; He desires 
the beauty of His work, the salvation of all men, the conver- 
sion of all sinners; but still more He loves His wisdom, He 


324 TWELFTH DIALOGUE 


loves it with an unconquerable love, He follows it inviolably. 
The immutable order of His divine perfections it is, wherein 
consists His law and the rule of His action, a law which does 
not forbid Him to love us and to desire that all creatures should 
be just, saintly, happy and perfect; but a law which does not 
permit Him to depart at any moment, for the sake of sinners, 
from the generality of His ways. His providence bears ample 
testimony to His goodness towards men. Let us submit to it, let 
us rejoice in the fact that it also expresses His other attributes. 

THEOTIMUS. Well, Aristes, what do you think of the divine 
Providence ? 

ARISTES. I adore it and submit to it. 

THEODORE. Much discussion will be necessary, Aristes, to 
cause you to consider all the beauties of this adorable Providence, 
and to make you notice its principal traits in all that is 
happening before us day by day. But I have, it seems to me, 
sufficiently explained the principle; follow it closely, and you 
will assuredly understand that all those contradictions which 
induce the enemies of Providence to exult in pitiable triumph 
are really so many proofs in support of what I have been trying 
to show you. 


THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


It is not right to criticise the ordinary accounts of Providence—The principal 
general laws by the aid of which God governs the world—The provi- 
dence of God in bestowing infallibility upon His Church. 


I. Artistes. Ah, Theodore, how beautiful and noble the idea 
which you gave me of Providence appears to me, above all, how 
fruitful and luminous and how well calculated to silence liber- 
tines and infidels! Never was there a principle pregnant with 
more important consequences for religion and morality. This 
wonderful principle sheds light everywhere, and clears away 
countless difficulties. All those effects which conflict with one 
another in the order of nature and of grace do not indicate 
any contradiction in the cause which governs them ; they furnish, 
on the contrary, so many clear proofs of the uniformity of God’s 
activity. All those ills that we are heir to, all those disorders 
which overwhelm us, can easily be reconciled with the wisdom, 
goodness and justice of Him who rules over all. I could wish the 
wicked to be rooted out from among the good; but in patience 
I await the consummation of the generations, the day of the 
harvest, that great day set apart for repaying to each according 
to his deeds. The work of God must be accomplished in a way 
which shall bear the character of His attributes. I admire now 
the majestic course of general Providence. 

THEODORE. I can see, Aristes, that you have followed the 
principle which I laid before you a day or two ago closely and 
with pleasure, for you seem still to be moved by it. But 
have you quite grasped it, have you quite mastered it? Of 
this I am still in doubt, for it is very difficult for you in so short 
a time to have meditated upon it sufficiently to be fully in 
possession of it. Acquaint us, I beg of you, with some of your 
reflections on the subject, in order to clear up my doubt 


and put me at rest; for the more useful, the more fruitful 
325 


326 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


principles may be, the greater is the danger of not understanding 
them thoroughly. 


II. Artistes. I admit it, Theodore; but what you have said 
is so clear, and your mode of explaining Providence harmonises so 
completely with the idea of the infinitely perfect Being, and with 
all that we see taking place before our eyes, that I am quite 
persuaded that it is the true mode of explanation. How glad I 
am to see myself delivered from the error into which most men, 
and even philosophers, fall! As soon as a misfortune befalls a 
wicked man, or one who is known to be such, everyone judges at 
once of God’s designs, and concludes boldly that God willed 
to punish him. But if it happens—and it happens but too 
often—that a knave or scoundrel succeeds in his undertakings, 
or that a good man succumbs under the calumny of his enemies, 
does it follow that God wills to punish the one and reward 
the other? Not at all Some say that God wills to put the 
virtues of the good man to the test; others say that it is a 
misfortune which He has merely permitted, but has not deliber- 
ately caused to happen. I think that those people who glory 
in hating and despising the poor, on the ground that God Himself 
hates and despises the wretched, seeing that He leaves them in 
their wretchedness, reason more consistently. How can we judge 
of God’s designs? Ought we not to realise that we know 
nothing of them, since we contradict ourselves at every 
moment ? 

THEODORE. Is this the way, Aristes, in which you understand 
my principles, and this the use which you make of them ? I think 
that those whom you condemn are more in the right than you are. 

ARISTES. How so, Theodore? I think you must be joking, 
or amusing yourself in contradicting me. 

THEODORE. Not at all. 

ARISTES. Really! Do you then approve of the impertin- 
ences of those impassioned historians who, after relating the 
death of a Prince, judge of God’s designs with regard to him 
according to their feelings and the interests of their nation ? 
Either the Spanish or the French writers, or perhaps both, must 
be wrong in their descriptions of. the death of Philip II. Must 
not kings die just as we do? 

_ THEODORE. These historians are wrong, but you are not 
right. We must not conclude that God willed to do injury 


ON METAPHYSICS 327 


to a Prince who is our enemy, and whom we hate; that is true, 
but we can and must believe that He will punish the wicked 
and reward the good. Those who judge of God in accordance 
with the idea they have of the strict justice of the infinitely 
perfect Being, judge rightly of Him; and those who attribute to 
Him designs which favour their disorderly inclinations, judge 
wrongly of Him. 


III. Artstes. That is true; but it is one of the consequences 
of the natural laws that a certain person should be crushed 
under the ruins of his house, and that the best of men would 
not have escaped. 

THEODORE. Who doubts this? But have you not for- 
gotten that it is God who has established those laws? The 
erroneous idea of an imaginary “nature ”’ still lingers in your 
mind, and prevents you from understanding thoroughly the 
principle which I have explained to you. Be careful, therefore. 
Since it is God who established natural laws, He had to 
combine the physical with the moral in such a way that the 
consequences of such laws should be the best possible, I mean 
the most worthy of His justice and goodness, as well as of all 
His other attributes. Thus one is right in saying that the 
terrible death of a brute or infidel is an effect of the divine 
vengeance, for though the death is only the result of the natural 
laws which God has established, yet He only established them 
for the purpose of such effects; but if any misfortune befalls a 
good man when he is about to do a good deed, we must not say 
that God willed to punish him, because God did not establish 
general laws for the purpose of such effects. We must say 
that God has permitted this evil because it is a natural conse- 
quence of those laws which He has established for the sake of 
the best effects; or because He meant to test this good man 
and make him deserve his recompense; for among the motives 
which God had for combining in a certain way the physical with 
the moral, we must assuredly reckon the great benefits which 
He foresaw we should derive from our present wretchedness. 

Thus men are right in attributing to the justice of God the 
evils which befall the wicked. But I believe they err in two 
ways. Firstly, because they arrive at these conclusions only in 
the case of extraordinary punishments which strike the mind ; 
for if a scoundrel dies of fever, they do not usually think that 


328 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


this was a punishment from God; to make them think that, 
he must die from a lightning stroke, or at the hands of the 
hangman. Secondly, because they imagine that such remarkable 
punishments are the effects of a particular volition on the part 
of God. This is a false view, which, taking away from divine 
Providence its simplicity and generality, deprives it of the 
character of infinite foresight and immutability ; for, assuredly, 
infinitely more wisdom is necessary for combining the physical 
with the moral in a way which should involve the just punishment 
of certain people for their acts of violence, as a consequence of the 
interconnection of causes, than for punishing them by means of 
a peculiar and miraculous Providence. 

ARISTES. That is the way in which I conceive the matter. 
But what you are saying does not justify the temerity of those 
who boldly judge of God’s designs in all that happens before 
their eyes. 


IV. THEODORE. I do not maintain any more than you that 
they are always right. I only say that they are right when 
their judgments are free from passion and self-interest, and when 
they take as their basis the idea which we all have of the infinitely 
perfect Being. Neither do I maintain that they do well in saying 
too positively that God had such and sucha design. For example, 
it seems to me certain that one of the motives for the establish- 
ment of general laws was the affliction of such and such a 
good man, if God foresaw that this would be a greater occasion 
of merit to him. Thus, God willed this affliction, which to us, 
who do not foresee its consequences, does not seem to harmonise 
with His goodness. Those who conclude that God has merely 
permitted this misfortune to occur are mistaken. But what 
would you have, Aristes ? It is better to leave to men, biassed 
as they are in favour of their imaginary “nature,” the liberty of 
judging too positively of the designs of God than to argue with 
them concerning the effects which appear to contradict the divine 
attributes. What does it matter if minds fall into contradiction 
and are involved in difficulties because of their false ideas, 
providing that at bottom they are not mistaken in essential 
matters? Provided men do not impute to God designs which are 
contrary to His attributes, and do not make Him act to suit their 
passions, I believe they must be listened to in peace. Instead 
of burdening them with contradictions, which according to their 


ON METAPHYSICS 329 


principles are inexplicable, charity demands from us that we 
should accept what they say in order to confirm them in the 
ideas which they have of Providence, seeing that they are not in 
a position to have better ones; for it is even preferable to attri- 
bute to God a human providence than to believe that everything 
happens by chance. Moreover, at bottom they are right. A 
certain infidel dies. It may be boldly said that God has designed 
his punishment. One would be still more in the right if one 
said that God willed to prevent him from corrupting others, 
because in truth God always wills, by means of the general 
laws which He has established, to do all the good that it is 
possible to do. A certain good man dies before his time while 
on his way to help a poor man; in such a case one need not 
hesitate to conclude, even if he had been struck by lightning, 
that God willed to recompense him. What Scripture says of 
Enoch may be said of him: ‘ Raptus est ne malitia mutaret 
intellectum ejus, aut ne fictio deciperet animam illius.”’ Death 
removed him, lest the age should corrupt his mind and 
heart. All these opinions are in conformity with the idea which 
we have of the justice and goodness of God, and in harmony 
with the designs which He had when He laid down general 
laws for the regulation of the ordinary course of His Providence. 
Not that one is not often mistaken in these opinions ; for to all 
appearances such and such a good man who died young would 
have won greater merits and converted more sinners if he had 
lived longer in the circumstances under which he would have been 
placed in consequence of the general laws of nature and of grace. 
But opinions of this sort, though somewhat risky and _ bold, 
do not produce bad effects; and those who entertain them do 
not want us so much to believe them to be true as to adore the 
wisdom and goodness of God in the government of the world. 
ARISTES. I follow you, Theodore. It is better for men to 
speak ill of Providence than not to speak of it at all. 
THEODORE. No, Aristes. But it is better for men to speak 
often of Providence according to their poor ideas than never 
to speak of it at all. It is better for men to speak of it in human 
fashion than never to say anything of it. We ought never to 
speak ill either of God or of His Providence. That is true; but 
we are permitted to stutter out something with regard to these 
exalted matters, provided we do so in accordance with what we 
are taught by faith, For God is pleased with the efforts which 


330 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


we make to relate His marvels. Believe me, Aristes, one can 
hardly commit a greater wrong in speaking of Providence than 
in not speaking of it at all. 

THEOTIMUS. Would you, Aristes, wish philosophers alone to 
speak of Providence and, of philosophers, only those who have 
the idea of it which you have at present ? 


V. Artistes. Ishould wish men, Theotimus, never to speak of 
Providence in a way which is calculated to make simple-minded 
people believe that the wicked must succeed in their under- 
takings ; for the prosperity of infidels is so well established a fact 
that it can, and often does, sow distrust in the minds of men. If 
temporal good and evil were pretty well regulated in accordance 
with merit and faith in God, the way in which Providence is 
usually spoken of would not have any bad results. But note, 
most men, and those above all who have the most piety, fall 
into great misfortunes, because, instead of making use in their 
need of the certain measures furnished to them by generat 
Providence, they tempt God in the deceptive hope of a particular 
providence. If they have a lawsuit, for example, they neglect to 
prepare the necessary papers in order to instruct the judges on the 
justice of their cause. Ifthey have enemies or if there are envious 
people who prepare an ambush for them, instead of watching them 
so as to discover their designs, they expect that God will not fail 
to protect them. Women who have a cross husband, instead 
of winning him over by patience and humility, go to complain 
of him to all sorts of good people of their acquaintance, and to 
commend him to their prayers. One does not always obtain 
in this way what one desires and hopes for; and in that case 
one does not fail to grumble about Providence and to entertain 
opinions which violate the divine perfections. You are aware, 
Theotimus, of the sad effects which a Providence wrongly 
understood produces in the minds of simple people, and 
that it is mainly to this that superstition owes its origin,— 
superstition which causes an infinite number of evils in the 
world. 

TuEotImMus. I grant you, Aristes, that it would be desirable _ 
that all men should have a just idea of divine Providence. 
But I agree with Theodore, and submit that this not being 
possible, it is better for them to speak of it as they do than 
not to speak of it at all. The idea which they have of it, false _ 


ON METAPHYSICS 331 


though it be, and even the natural inclination which leads 
minds to superstition, is very advantageous to them in the state 
they are in, for it prevents them from falling into a thousand 
errors. When you have thought this matter over, I believe 
you will agree. A certain person loses his lawsuit because he 
neglected the natural means which were requisite. What does 
it matter, Aristes ? The loss of his property will prove, perhaps, 
to be the cause of his salvation. Assuredly, if it is not laziness 
and negligence which have caused him to neglect all this, but a 
holy impulse of faith in God and the fear of meddling with the 
quibbles of law and of losing his time to no purpose, if that is so, 
he has gained his lawsuit before God, though he may perchance 
have lost it before men ; for he will gain more profit from a suit 
lost in this way than from another won with expenses, damages, 
and interest. 


VI. We are Christians, Aristes; we are entitled to the true 
goods ; Heaven is open, and Jesus Christ, our precursor and 
chief, has already entered it for us. Accordingly, God no longer 
rewards our faith in Him, as was His wont formerly, by an 
abundance of temporal goods; He has better rewards for His 
adopted children in Jesus Christ. That time has passed away 
together with the law. The ancient covenant symbolical of 
the new is now abrogated. If we were Jews, I mean 
carnal Jews, we should have here below a recompense in 
proportion to our deserts; I say carnal, for the Christian 
Jews had a share in the cross of Jesus Christ before sharing 
in His glory. But we have a hope better than theirs, a 
better and an enduring possession! founded on a better 
covenant and better victims: “‘ By so much hath Jesus become 
the surety of a better covenant. . . . With better sacrifices than 
these.’”’2 The prosperity of the wicked should not surprise 
us more than the Jewish Christians, than the Mahometans, than 
those who do not know the difference there is between the two 
covenants, between the Grace of the Old Testament and that 
of the New, between the temporal goods which God bestowed 
upon the Jews through the agency of the angels and the true 
goods which God gives to His children through our chief and 
Mediator Jesus Christ. It is believed that men ought to 
be wretched in proportion to their wickedness. It is true ; 

t Heb, x. 34. WO Heb. Vil. 22, 1x.- 23: 


332 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


and at bottom we are not mistaken in believing this, for sooner 
or later it will come to pass. There is not a Christian who 
does not know that the day will come when God will render 
to each according to his deeds. The prosperity of the wicked 
can therefore disturb only those who are lacking in faith, and — 
who recognise no other goods than those of this life. Thus, 
Aristes, the confused and imperfect idea which most men have 
of Providence does not produce so many bad results as you 
think in true Christians, though it may disturb the minds of and 
render extremely anxious the majority of men, who often notice 
that it is not in accord with experience. But it is better that 
they should have this idea of Providence than that they should 
have no idea of it at all, which by degrees would come to be 
the case if they allowed it to be blotted out from their minds 
through a pernicious silence. 

ARISTES. I admit, Theotimus, that faith often precludes us 
from drawing impious conclusions from the prosperity of the 
wicked and the sufferings of the good. But as faith is not 
so palpable as the continuous experience of sad events, it does 
not always prevent the mind from being disturbed and from mis- 
trusting Providence. Moreover, Christians hardly ever follow the 
principles of their religion ; they speak of good and evil as the 
carnal Jews do. When a father exhorts his son to follow virtue, 
he is not afraid of saying to him that if he is a good man all 
his undertakings will be successful. Do you think that his — 
son then thinks of the true goods? Alas! perhaps the father 
never thinks of them himself. Meanwhile, the infidels, who care- — 
fully notice the contradictions of all these harangues, which are 
made without any reflection on the ways of Providence, do not fail | 
to extract from them proofs of their infidelity, and these proofs 
are so readily grasped, so palpable, that merely to put them for- 
ward is enough to disturb good people and to cause the downfall — 
of those who are not upheld by faith. ‘Suppose ye,” said 
Jesus Christ, “that these eighteen persons who were crushed 
under the tower of Siloam were more criminal, more beholden ~ 
to the justice of God, than the other inhabitants of Jerusalem ? © 
Nay, I tell you, but you shall all perish unless you repent.” 
This is how one ought to speak to men in order to teach them © 
that in this life the most wretched are not on that account 
the most criminal, and that those who live in abundance, in 

t Luke xiii. 4, 5. a 





ON METAPHYSICS 333 


the midst of pleasures and honours, are not on that account 
more cherished by God or protected by a more particular 
Providence. — : 


VII. THEoTImus. Yes, Aristes; but everybody is not always 
in a position to realise this truth. Durus est hic sermo.. The 
carnal people, those who as yet share the opinions of the Jews, 
do not comprehend it at all. It is necessary to speak to men 
according to their light or capacity, and to adapt oneself to their 
weakness in order gradually to win them over. It is necessary 
carefully to preserve in their minds the idea of Providence 
which they are capable of having. It is necessary to promise 
them a hundredfold, that they should understand it as they can, 
according to the dispositions of their heart. Carnal people will, 
it is true, understand it wrongly ; but it is better that they should 
believe that virtue is badly rewarded than that it will not be 
rewarded at all. Indeed, according to their false ideas, it will be 
rewarded perfectly well. Some libertine will point out to them 
that false promises are being held out to them. Granted, but 
perhaps this will help in making them understand that they 
are mistaken, and that the good things which they value so highly 
are of little importance, since God distributes them in a manner 
so little to their liking, so far from falling in with their prejudices. 
_Assuredly, Aristes, one can hardly speak too much of Providence, 
even if one were to know nothing of it; for it always calls up 
in the mind the idea that there is a God who rewards and 
punishes. A confused idea of Providence is as useful as the 
idea you have of it, in making most men incline to virtue. It 
cannot remove the difficulties of infidels ; it cannot be defended 
without leading to an infinite number of contradictions. That 
is true. But, then, this would hardly trouble simple people. 
Faith sustains them, and their humility and simplicity give 
them sufficient protection from the attacks of the infidels. 
I believe, therefore, that in our sermons to ordinary people we 
ought to speak of Providence according to the most common 
. idea; and that that which Theodore has taught us should be kept 
in reserve to silence the would-be clever people, and to reassure 
those who are troubled by consideration of the effects which 
seem to contradict the divine perfections; assuming also in 
their case that they are capable of the attention which is neces- 
sary for the understanding of our principles, since otherwise the 


334 THIRTENTH DIALOGUE 


shortest way would be, if they are Christians, to curb them by 
the authority of Scripture alone. 

ARISTES. I yield, Theotimus. Men must be spoken to accord- 
ing to their light when they are not in a position to go deeply 
into things. If we were to criticise the confused ideas which 
they have of Providence, we should perhaps be the cause of 
their downfall. It would be easy to embarrass them with 
the difficulties which they meet. But it would be very 
difficult to save them from their embarrassment, since too much 
application is needed for a recognition and understanding of 
the true principles of Providence. I see all this, Theotimus, 
and I think that it is mainly because of this that Jesus Christ 
and the Apostles did not formally teach us the rational grounds 
of which the theologians avail themselves in supporting the 
truths of faith. They assumed that enlightened people would 
know those principles, and that simple-minded people who 
submit entirely to authority would not need them, and 
might be disgusted with them and grasp them wrongly through 
lack of application and intelligence. I am, therefore, quite 
resolved to leave to men the freedom to speak of Providence 
in their own way, so long as they do not say anything which 
is openly in conflict with the divine attributes, so long as they 
do not assign to God unjust and bizarre designs, and do not 
make Him act for the purpose of satisfying their unruly inclina- 
tions. But as for philosophers, and above all as for would-be 
clever people, I shall assuredly not tolerate their impertinent 
raillery. I hope I shall have my turn, and that I shall be able 


to embarrass them greatly. They have silenced me several times, _ 


but I shall soon compel them to be silent; for now I have answers 
to meet all that was most specious and strong in their objections. 


VIII. THEopoRE. Beware, Aristes, of allowing vanity and 


pride to inspire your zeal. Seek no adversaries for the sake of | 


having the glory and the pleasure of defeating them. It is 


truth which ought to be made to triumph over those who have © 
fought against it. If you set out to confuse them, you will © 
not win them over, and perhaps they will even confuse you; 
for I grant you have that wherewith you can silence them, but | 
only on the assumption that they are willing to listen to reason, — 
which assuredly they will not do if they feel that you want to 


See 


gain the day. If they mock you, they will have the mockers on i 


ON METAPHYSICS | 335 


their side ; if they are frightened, they will spread fear in people’s 
minds. You will remain alone with your principles, of which 
no one will understand anything. I advise you, therefore, Aristes, 
to take these people whom you have in mind and to lay your 
opinions before them as though you wanted to learn from them 
what you ought to think about the matter. In order to answer 
you, it will become necessary for them to inquire, and perhaps 
they may become convinced by the evidence. Beware, above 
all, of making them imagine that you are making game of them. 
Speak as a genuine inquirer, so that they will not recognise 
your charitable dissimulation. But when you see that the 
truth has impressed them, fight for it without any fear of their 
abandoning it. They will look upon it as a possession which 
belongs to them, and which they have won by their application 
and work; they will be interested in its defence, not perhaps 
because they really love it, but because it will come to be identi- 
fied with their self-respect. In this manner you will bring 
them over to the side of truth, and you will establish between 
it and them links of interest which they will not easily break 
through. Most men look at truth as a very useless acquisition, 
or rather as something that is embarrassing and inconvenient. 
But if it is of their own making, and if they look upon it as a 
possession of which people want to deprive them, they become 
attached to it and give it such attentive consideration that they 
can no longer forget it. 

ARISTES. You are right, Theodore. To win people over 
securely it is necessary to find a way of making amends to their 
self-respect ; herein lies the secret of success, I shall try strictly 
to follow your friendly advice. But do you think I have 
sufficiently mastered your principles to be able to convince 
others of them, and to meet all their difficulties ? 

THEODORE. If you are determined to adopt the air and 
manner of a learner in dealing with your people, it is not neces- 
sary that you should be versed in these principles more exactly. 
Your people will teach you them just as well as I. 

ARISsTES. How, Theodore, can they teach me just as well 
as you? 

THEODORE. Better than I, Aristes; you will see that it is so 
by experience. Remember only the main truths which I have 
_ explained to you, and with which you ought to relate all the 
. questions which you will put to them, 


336 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


Remember that God can act only in accordance with what 
He is, only in a way which bears the character of His attributes ; 
that, therefore, He does not form any designs independently of 
the means of their realisation, but chooses that work and those 
means which together will express the perfections, in the posses- 
sion of which He glories, better than any other work produced 
in any other way. This, Aristes, is the most general and the 
most fruitful principle. 

Remember that the more simplicity, uniformity, and gene- 
rality there is in Providence, other things remaining the same, 
the more it bears the character of the Divinity ; and that, there- 
fore, God governs the world by means of general laws, in order 
to make His wisdom shine forth in the interlinking of causes. 

Remember also that created things do not act upon one 
another by their own activity, and that God only communicates 
His power to them because He has made their modifications into 
occasional causes, determining the exercise of the general laws 
which He has prescribed for Himself. Everything depends upon 
this principle. 


IX. The following, Aristes, are the general laws in accord- 
ance with which God regulates the ordinary course of His 
Providence :— 

1. The general laws of the communication of motion, of 
which laws the impact of bodies is the occasional or natural 
cause. It is by the establishment of these laws that God has 
communicated to the sun the power to illumine, to fire the 
power to burn, and so on with regard to the other virtues or 
powers which bodies have for the purpose of acting upon one 
another ; and it is by obeying His own laws that God produces 
everything which the secondary causes seem to produce. 

2. The laws of the conjunction of soul and body, the modifi- 
cations of which are reciprocally the occasional causes of the 
changes that occur in them. It is on account of these laws 
that I have the power to speak, walk, feel, imagine, and so 
on, and that objects have, through my sense organs, the power 
of affecting and influencing me. It is by means of these laws 
that God unites me to all His works. 

3. The laws of the union of the soul with God, with the 
intelligible substance of the universal Reason, of which laws 
our attention is the occasional cause. It is because of the 


EEE 


ON METAPHYSICS 337 


establishment of these laws that the mind has the power to 
think of whatever it wishes to think, and of discovering the 
truth. By means of reason and experience we are apprised of 
these three laws alone. But the authority of Scripture brings to 
our knowledge two others, viz. :— 

4. The general laws which give to good and bad angels 
power over bodies—substances inferior to their nature.t By the 
exercise of these laws the angels governed the Jewish people, 
whom they punished and rewarded by means of temporal goods 
and evils in accordance with the commands they had received 
from God. By the exercise of these laws devils have still the 
power to tempt us, and our tutelary angels the power to defend 
us. The occasional causes of these laws are their practical 
desires ; for there is a contradiction in supposing that anyone 
but the Creator of bodies can be their mover. 

5. Finally, the laws through which Jesus Christ received 
supreme power in heaven and earth, not only over bodies, but 
over minds; not only to distribute temporal goods, as the 
angels did to the synagogue, but to diffuse in our hearts the 
inner grace which makes us children of God, and gives us a right 
to eternal goods. The occasional causes of these laws are the 
diverse movements of the saintly soul of Jesus; for our Mediator 
and sovereign Priest intercedes for us incessantly, and His 
intercession is always and very promptly hearkened unto. 

These, then, Aristes, are the most general laws of nature and 
of grace which God follows in the ordinary course of His Provi- 
dence. By means of these laws He executes His designs in a 
way which admirably bears the character of His infinite fore- 
sight, His character of searching all hearts, His immutability and 
His other attributes. By means of these laws He communicates 
His power to His creatures and gives them a share in the glory of 
the work which He accomplishes through their agency. Indeed, 
it is through this very communication of His power and glory 
that He does the greatest honour to His attributes ; for an infinite 
wisdom is necessary in order to make use thus readily of free 
causes just as much as of necessary ones in the realisation of 
His designs. 

But though God has prescribed these general laws for Himself, 

1 Cf. the last Eclaircissement du Traité de la Nature et de la Grace and the 


Réponse a la Dissertation de M. Arnauld. 
2 Cf. Tvaité de la Nature et de la Grace, II. 


22 


338 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


as well as some others about which there is no need to speak, 
as for example the laws whereby the fire of Hell has the power 
to torment evil spirits, the water of baptism the power to purify 
us, and formerly the bitter waters of jealousy the power to 
punish the unfaithfulness of women,? and several others, though 
God, I say, has prescribed these laws for Himself, and though 
He never departs without good reasons from the generality of 
His procedure, yet remember that when He receives more glory 
in departing from it than in following it, then He never fails 
to abandon it; for to reconcile the contradictions which appear 
in the effects of Providence, it is enough that you should main- 
tain that God usually acts and must act ordinarily in accord- 
ance with general laws. Keep, therefore, these principles well in 
mind, and arrange your questions so as to make the persons 
whom you wish to convert see them. 

ARISTES. I shall do so, Theodore, and I hope I shall succeed 
in my design ; for all these principles seem to me so evident, so 
well linked with one another, so much in harmony with what 
we observe in actual experience, that unless prejudice and 
passion blind people to the impression which they ought to make 
on their minds, they will find it difficult to resist them. I 
thank you for the advice you have given me to make amends to 
their self-respect, for I see quite well that I should spoil every- 
thing if I set about it in the way I should have liked to. But, 
Theodore, assuming that I succeed in my aim and convince 
them of the truth of our principles, how can I compel them to 
recognise the authority of the Church? For they are born in 
heresy, and I should like very much to save them from it. 

THEODORE. Truly, Aristes, that is quite another matter. 
You are perhaps of the opinion that to convert heretics it is 
enough to give valid proofs of the infallibility of the Church. 
The intervention of heaven is necessary, Aristes. For the spirit 
of faction causes so many secret connections in the hearts of 
those who are unfortunately engaged in disputes as to blind 
them and close their eyes to the truth. If anyone were 
to exhort you to become a Huguenot, assuredly you would not 
listen to him willingly. Know, therefore, that they perhaps are 
more ardent than we are, because in the position in which 
they are at present they exhort one another more often than 
we do to exhibit firmness. Having an infinite number of 

1 Numb. v. 14. 


Ea ere 


ON METAPHYSICS 339 


pledges, unions, prejudices, selfish reasons, which keep them in 
their sect, what skill must be needed in order to make them 
give unbiassed consideration to the proofs which might be 
adduced to show them that they are in error! 

ARISTES. I know, Theodore, that they are extremely sensi- 
tive with regard to their religion, and however gently one attacks 
them on this point, all their passions are aroused. But do not 
fear, for, apart from the fact that those of whom I speak are 
not so sensitive as many others, I shall adopt the air of a sub- 
missive learner so well, that in order to answer me they will be 
compelled to examine the questions which I shall raise. Do but 
give me some proofs of the infallibility of the Church in con- 
formity with the idea which you have given me of Providence. 


X. THEODORE. It is certain from Scripture, which the 
heretics dare not reject, that “‘ God willeth that all men should be 
saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.’’! It is neces- 
sary, therefore, to find in the order of Providence reliable means 
for making all men arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 

ArIsTtEs. I deny this conclusion. God wills that all men 
should be saved, but He does not will to do all that would be 
necessary to save them; if He did will it, they would all be 
saved ; the Chinese and so many other people would not be 
deprived of the knowledge of the true God and of His Son Jesus 
Christ, in whom there is eternal life. 

THEODORE. I am not telling you, Aristes, that God wills 
to do all that would be necessary to save all mankind; He 
does not will to perform miracles every moment; He does 
not will to send victorious grace to all hearts. His action 
must bear the character of His attributes, and He must not 
depart without good reasons from the generality of His provi- 
dence. His wisdom does not permit Him always to apportion 
His aid in accordance with the present needs of the wicked 
and the foreseen negligence of the just. All mankind would 
be saved if He acted in this way towards us. I maintain 
merely that it is necessary to find in Providence general means 
to correspond with God’s desire that all men should arrive at 
a knowledge of the truth. Now, this knowledge can be arrived 
at only in two ways, by investigation or by authority. 

ARISTES. I understand you, Theodore. The method of exami- 


ta. Tim, ii, 4: 


340 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


nation, or investigation, answers perhaps to God’s desire to save 
the cultured, but God desires to save the poor, the simple, the 
ignorant, those who cannot read as well as our learned critics. 
And yet I do not see that people like Grotius, Coccejus, 
Saumaise, Buxtovf, have arrived at that knowledge of the 
truth which it 1s God’s will we should all arrive at. Perhaps 
Grotius was nearest toit at the moment when death overtook him. 
But what! Does Providence look after the salvation of those 
people only who have enough life as well as understanding and 
knowledge to distinguish truth from error? Assuredly, this is 
not likely to be the case. The method of investigation is quite 
insufficient. Now that man’s reason has been weakened, it must 
be guided by authority. The method of authority is palpable, 
certain, general, and answers perfectly to God’s will that all 
men should attain to the knowledge of truth. But where are 
we to find this infallible authority, this sure method which we 
can all follow without fearing any error? The heretics 
maintain that such authority is to be found only in the sacred 
writings. 


XI. THEODORE. It is to be found in the sacred writings, 
but it is by the authority of the Church that we know this. St. 
Augustine was right in saying that without the Church he would 
not believe in the Gospel. How does it come about that simple 
people can be certain that the four gospels which we have 
possess an infallible authority ? The ignorant have no proofs to 
show that the gospels were composed by the authors bearing their 
names, or that they have not been corrupted in essential points ; 
and I am not aware that scholars have any proofs which are 
quite certain. But, even if it were certain that the Gospel of 
St. Matthew, for example, was written by that apostle, and that 
it is at present precisely as he wrote it, assuredly if we had no 
infallible authority teaching us that this Evangelist was divinely 
inspired, we should not be able to rest our faith upon his words 
as upon the words of God Himself. There are some people 
who maintain that the divine origin of the sacred writings is 
so obvious that no one can read them without recognising it. 
But upon what does this claim rest? Other grounds than 
mere guesses and prejudices are necessary in order to attribute 
infallibility to them. It is necessary either that the Holy Spirit 
should reveal this fact to each individual, or to the Church for 


nN gern - 


EE neat, 


— 








> - eee i eR Te, eR oe ee Oe CN er a ETT Re SE A, eet ae DT Ae be 
ET ae Ne AE RT A ee see i Shae ere a 


ON METAPHYSICS | 341 


all individuals. Now, the latter course is much more simple, 
more general, more worthy of Providence than the former. 

But let us grant that all those who read the Scripture know 
by a particular revelation that the Gospel is a divine book, 
and that it has not been corrupted by the malice and negligence of 
the copyists, who will give us intelligence to understand it? For 
reason is not enough to enable us always to grasp its true meaning. 
The Socinians are just as reasonable as other men, and they 
find in the sacred writings that the Son is not consubstantial 
with the Father. The Calvinists are men like the Lutherans, 
and they maintain that the words, ‘‘ Take, eat, this is my body,”’ 
signify in the passage referred to that what Jesus Christ gave to 
His apostles was nothing but the symbol of His body. Who 
will undeceive the former or the latter? Who will guide them 
to the knowledge of that truth which it is God’s will we should 
all arrive at? There would become necessary at every moment 
and for each individual an intervention of the Holy Spirit, which 
the heretics refuse in the case of the whole Church assembled for 
the purpose of arriving at decisions. What extravagance, what 
blindness, what pride! They believe that they understand 
Scripture better than the Universal Church, which preserves the 
sacred storehouse of tradition, and which merits a little more 
than each individual that Jesus Christ, who is its head, should 
exert Himself in its defence against the powers of Hell. 


XII. Most men believe that God is guiding them by means 
of a particular Providence, or rather that He is guiding them 
as well as those for whom they entertain feelings of great 
respect ; they are inclined to believe that So-and-so is cherished 
by God to such a degree that he will not be allowed to fall 
into error, nor they to lead him into it; they ascribe a kind 
of infallibility to him, and they willingly rely upon the fictitious 
authority which they have made for themselves by a number 
of reflections upon the great and excellent qualities of the 
person in question, in order to avoid in this manner the trouble- 
some task of investigation. These people are the blind following 
the blind, and are sure to fall into the precipice with them. All 
men are liable to error: omnis homo mendax. It is true that we 
need a visible authority now that we can no longer easily enter 
into ourselves in order to consult reason, and that there are 
truths necessary for our salvation which we can learn only by 


342 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


revelation. But this authority upon which we must rely ought 
to be general, and the effect of a general Providence. God does 
not usually act upon our minds by means of particular volitions 
in order to prevent us from falling into error. That is not 
in accord with the ideas which we ought to have of Provi- 
dence, which must bear the character of the divine attributes. 
God has entrusted our salvation to the care of our Mediator, 
but Jesus Christ imitates the procedure of His Father as much 
as possible by making nature subservient to Grace, and by 
choosing general means for the accomplishment of His task. 
He sent His apostles over all the world to declare the truth 
of the Gospel to all the nations ; He gave His Church bishops, 
priests, and doctors, and a visible head to govern it; He 
established the sacraments for the diffusion of His grace into 
all hearts—a sure indication that He accomplishes His work 
by methods which are general and furnished to Him by the 
laws of nature. No doubt Jesus Christ can illumine our minds 
inwardly without the aid of preaching, but apparently He does 
not do so. He can regenerate us without baptism, but He 
does not wish to render His sacraments useless; He will never 
act upon any person in a particular way without some particular 
reason, without a kind of necessity. Yet what necessity can 
there be for enlightening a certain critic so that he may grasp 
the real meaning of a certain passage of Scripture ? The authority 
of the Church is enough to prevent us from being led astray ; 
why should he not submit to it? It is enough for Jesus Christ to 
preserve the infallibility of the Church, in order to preserve at the 
same time the faith of all its children who are humble and obedient 
to their mother. Unhappy the bold and presumptuous who 
expect Jesus Christ to enlighten them in a particular manner 
against reason, against the order of His procedure, which He has 
regulated in accordance with the immutable order! Jesus 
Christ never fails to help the good in their time of need; He 
never refuses them the grace which is necessary for overcoming 
temptation ; He opens their minds when they read the holy 
writings ; he often rewards their faith by the gift of intelligence ; 
all this is in conformity with order, and is necessary for their 
instruction and the edification of the nations. But, for the 
maintenance of our faith in matters which have been decided, 
we have the authority of the Church; this is sufficient. He 
desires us to submit to it. From Him alone can we receive the 


q 
i 
| 


ee a at Sn 





ON METAPHYSICS 343 


help that is necessary to overcome temptation. This is the 
reason why He intercedes incessantly in order to preserve in 
us our charity; but He does not intercede incessantly in order 
to prevent the presumptuous from falling into error when 
reading Scripture, having given us an infallible authority upon 
which we ought to rely, that, namely, of the Church of the living 
God, which is the pillar and firm support of truth, columna et 
firmamentum. veritatis | * 4 

ARISTES. What you are now saying, Theodore, is in perfect 
accord with the idea which you have given me of Providence. 
God has His general laws, and our Mediator and Head His rules, 
which He invariably follows, as God follows His laws, unless the 
immutable order which is the primordial law of all intelligences 
demands an exception. It is infinitely simple and more in 
conformity with reason that Jesus Christ should aid His Church 
in order to prevent it from falling into error than each individual, 
and above all than he who has the temerity to call in question 
matters which have been decided, and who thereby accuses the 
Saviour of having abandoned His Spouse, or of not having been 
able to defend her. We need at present an infallible authority. 
Providence has provided us with one; and this in a way which 
appears to me worthy of the divine attributes and of the 
character of our Saviour Jesus Christ, a way which answers 
perfectly to God’s will that all men should be saved and should 
attain to the knowledge of truth. 

THEODORE. That is true, Aristes. For the Apostolic and 
Roman Church is visible and recognisable. It is perpetual for 
all time and universal for all places; at the least it is a society 
which is the most exposed to the view of the whole earth and 
the most venerable on account of its antiquity. None of the 
particular sects have the stamp of truth upon them, nor any 
indication of divine origin. Those who at present seem to have 
some lustre began their course long after the Church. Of this 
most people are aware, even those who allow themselves to be 
dazzled by their little lustre which hardly extends beyond the 
boundaries of their own country. In this way God has pro- 
vided all men, so far as His general laws permit, with an easy 
and sure means for arriving at a knowledge of the truth. 

THEOoTIMUS. I donot understand, Aristes, upon what grounds 
one can call in question the infallibility of the Church of Jesus 


24 Tim, i, 15. 


344 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


Christ. Do not the heretics believe that it was divinely insti- 
tuted, or that it is divinely governed? To doubt its divine 
inspiration one needs must have no idea of the Church of Jesus 
Christ, one must look upon it as upon other societies in order to 
believe that it is liable to error in the decisions at which it 
arrives for the instruction of its children. Yes, Aristes, there is 
no one, unless he be strangely prejudiced, who does not see at 
once that since Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, since He 
is its Spouse, its Protector, it is impossible for the doors of Hell 
to prevail against it, impossible for it to inculcate errors, pro- 
vided he have that idea of Jesus Christ which he ought to have. 
For this there is no need to go into much investigation; it is 
a truth which must stare the simplest and grossest people in 
the face. An authority is necessary in all societies, of this 
everybody in convinced. Even the heretics require those of 
their sect to submit to the decisions of their synods. In truth, 
a society without any authority is a many-headed monster. 
Now, the Church is a society divinely instituted to lead mankind 
to the knowledge of truth. It is clear, therefore, that its authority 
must be infallible in order that we should be able to arrive at that 
which it is God’s will we should arrive at, without being com- 
pelled to follow the perilous and inadequate path of investigation. 

THEODORE. Let us even suppose, Aristes, that Jesus Christ 
is neither the Head nor the Spouse of the Church, that He does 
not watch over it, that He is not in its midst to the end of all 
the generations, in order to defend it against the powers of Hell ; 
it would then no longer possess that divine infallibility which 
is the unshakable foundation of our faith. Nevertheless, it seems 
to me that one must have lost one’s head, or be biased with 
a prodigious stubbornness, in order to prefer the opinions of 
the heretics to the decisions of its councils. Let us take an 
example. We wish to ascertain whether it is the body of Jesus 
Christ, or the symbol of His body, which is in the Eucharist. 
We all agree that the apostles knew quite well what it was. 
We agree that they taught that which it was the duty of all 
the Churches which they founded to believe. What do we do, 
then, in order to clear up the point in dispute? We call together 
the most general assemblies possible. We bring together in one 
place the best witnesses obtainable of the beliefs of different 
countries. The bishops know very well whether in the Church 
over which they preside it is or is not believed that the body of 


eee eee ee ee a 





ON METAPHYSICS 345 


Jesus Christ is in the Eucharist. They are, therefore, asked as 
to their opinions on the subject. They declare that it is an 
article of their faith that the bread is changed into the body 
of Jesus Christ. They pronounce anathema against those who 
maintain the contrary. The bishops of other Churches who were 
unable to be present at the assembly give positive approval 
to the decision ; or, if they happen to have no connection with 
those of the Council, they are silent, and by their silence testify 
to their being of the same opinion! Otherwise they would not 
hesitate to condemn it, for the Greeks do not spare the Latins. 
This being so, I maintain that even on the assumption that 
Jesus Christ has abandoned His Church, one needs have bidden 
farewell to one’s common sense to prefer the opinions of Calvin 
to that of all those witnesses who attest a fact which it is not 
possible they could be ignorant of. 

ARISTES. This is most evident. But you will be told that 
these bishops who cannot be ignorant as to what is believed 
at present in their Churches on the question of the Eucharist 
may yet not know what was believed with regard to it a 
thousand years ago; and that it may be that all the various 
Churches have unconsciously fallen into error. 

THEODORE. On the assumption that Jesus Christ does not 
govern His Church, I admit that it might happen that all the 
Churches, in general, should fall into error; but that they should 
all fall into the same error is a moral impossibility ; that they 
should fall into it without history having left striking indica- 
tions of their disputes is another moral impossibility ; finally, 
that they should all fall into an error resembling that which 
the Calvinists impute to us is an absolute impossibility. For 
what is the decision which the Church has arrived at ? That the 
body of a man is present at the same time in an infinity of places; 
that the body of a man is present in such a small portion of 
space as the Eucharist ; that as soon as the priest has uttered 
certain words the bread is transformed into the body of Jesus 
Christ and the wine into His blood. What! I speak as a 
heretic—are we to believe that this madness, this extravagance 
has seized the minds of the Christians of all Churches? One 
must, it seems to me, be mad to maintain this. Never has the 
same error been generally approved unless it was in general 
conformity with the dispositions of the mind. All nations were 
able to adore thesun. Why? Because this star dazzles all men 


346 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


generally. But if one mad people adore mice, another will 
adore cats. If Jesus Christ were to abandon His Church, all 
Christians could very well fall by degrees into the heresy of 
Calvin with regard to the Eucharist; for, as a matter of fact, 
the error is repugnant neither to our reason nor to our senses. 
But that all the Christian Churches should have adopted an 
opinion which revolts the imagination, repels the senses, astonishes 
our reason; all this insensibly, without anyone being aware 
of the fact,—to maintain this, I say again, one must have 
renounced one’s common sense, have no knowledge of mankind, 
and never have given a thought to one’s inner dispositions. 
But I will grant, Aristes, that God having abandoned His 
Church, it is possible that all Christians should fall into the 
same error, a shocking error, and one which is quite contrary to 
our mental dispositions, and this without anyone having become 
aware of it; yet I still maintain, notwithstanding this assumption, 
that we cannot refuse to submit to the decision of the Church, 
unless we are ridiculously prejudiced. On this assumption, it 
is possible for the Church to be mistaken. But without any 
assumption one can prove quite naturally that a particular 
person may fall into error. It is not a question of a truth which 
depends upon any metaphysical principles, but of a fact as to 
what, for example, Jesus Christ meant by the words, “‘ This is 
my body,’ which one can hardly ascertain in a better way 
than from the testimony of those who succeeded the apostles. 
It is alleged that the decision of the Council was contrary to what 
was formerly believed. Very well. It follows, therefore, that 
all the bishops together did not know the tradition as well as 
Calvin. But where are the ancient authors who say to the nations, 
as they ought to have done: “Take care! these words, ‘ This is 
my body,’ do not mean that this is the body of Jesus Christ, but 
only the symbol of His body.’”’ Why do they confirm them in the 
thought which these clear words naturally engender in our minds, 
so naturally, indeed, that though nothing seems more incredible 
than the meaning they convey, all the Churches have believed 
themselves obliged to accept it? Since the same thing may 
in different respects be both a symbol and a reality, I admit that 
there are Fathers who have spoken of the Eucharist as a symbol, 
For, indeed, the sacrifice of the Mass symbolises or represents 
that of the Cross. But they ought not to have been satisfied 
with dwelling upon the symbol; they ought to have rejected 


ee Re a a See eer e a al 








ON METAPHYSICS 347 


the reality. Nevertheless, the contrary is everywhere seen to 
be the case. They were afraid lest our faith be shaken through 
the difficulty there is in believing the reality, and they often 
reassure us on the authority of Jesus Christ and on the basis 
of the knowledge we have of the divine power. 

If one confine oneself to saying that the decision of the Council 
is contrary to reason or good sense, I submit once again that 
the more it seems to clash with reason and good sense, 
the more certain it is that it is in conformity with truth. For, 
after all, were not the men of past generations made in the 
same way as those of to-day? Our imagination revolts when 
we are told that the body of Jesus Christ is at the same time 
in heaven and upon our altars. But, seriously, does one think 
that there ever has been a generation when men were not struck 
by so staggering a thought? Nevertheless, this awful mystery 
was believed by all the Christian Churches. The fact is estab- 
lished by the testimony of those who ought to know best ; 
I mean by the voice of the bishops. Men must, therefore, 
have been instructed by a superior authority, by an authority 
which they believed to be infallible, and which one sees at once 
and without any examination to be infallible if one has that idea 
of Jesus Christ and His Church which one ought to have. 
Let people, then, assume whatever they like, one need only 
weigh in one’s own mind what one is to believe when one has, 
on the one hand, the decision of a Council and, on the other hand, 
the dogmas of a particular individual or a particular assembly 
which the Church does not approve. 

ARISTES. I understand, Theodore, from the reasons which 
you have given me, that those who deny the Church the infalli- 
bility which is essential to it are not on that account free from 
the obligation to submit to its decisions. To be freed from or 
rid of this obligation they must renounce their common sense. 
Nevertheless, one so often notices that the most common 
opinions are not the truest, that one is inclined to believe that 
what a good scholar puts forward is more certain than what 
one hears from everybody. 

THEODORE. You have put your finger, Aristes, upon one of the 
main causes of the prejudice and obstinacy of the heretics. They 
do not sufficiently distinguish between the dogmas of faith and 
the truths which one can only discover by the work of attention. 
In all that depends upon abstract principles, not being within the 


348 THIRTEENTH DIALOGUE 


reach of everybody, good sense demands that we should distrust 
what the multitude believes. It is infinitely more likely that 
a single man who applies himself seriously to the search after 
truth will find it than a million others who do not even give 
it a thought. It is true, therefore, and has often been noted 
that the most common opinions are not the truest. But 
in matters of faith quite the contrary holds good. The more | 
witnesses there are to attest a fact the more certainty does this 
fact possess. The dogmas of religion are not acquired by specula- 
tion, but by authority, by the testimony of those who keep 
the sacred storehouse of tradition. What the whole world 
believes, what has always been believed, that it is necessary to 
believe eternally. For in matters of faith, of revealed truths, 
of decided dogmas, the most common opinions are the true ones. 
Yet the desire to distinguish themselves causes people to call in 
question what everybody believes, and to regard as unquestionable 
what ordinarily passes for very uncertain. Their self-love is not 
satisfied when they do not excel other people, and when they 
know only what no one is ignorant of. Instead of building 
solidly upon the foundations of faith, and by humility raising 
themselves to an understanding of the sublime truths to which 
it leads ; instead of earning in this manner, both before God and 
all equitable people, a true and solid glory, they find a malignant 
pleasure and an occasion of vainglory in disturbing the sacred 
foundations, and are thus imprudently striking against that 
rock which will crush all those who have the insolence to dash 
themselves against it. 

ARISTES. I have now, Theodore, more than is necessary 
for interrogating my people, and for guiding them whither I 
have long since wished to guide them. If the Church is 
divinely governed, it must be divinely inspired. If Jesus Christ 
is its Head, it cannot become the mistress of error. God, 
desiring all men to attain to a knowledge of truth, cannot 
have left to the discussions of the human intellect the faith which 
leads to it. His Providence must have found a way which was 
certain and easy for ordinary people as well as for the learned. 
Particular revelations made to all those who read Scripture 
are not in harmony with the idea which we ought to have of 
the divine Providence. Experience teaches us that each person 
interprets it in accordance with his prejudices. Finally, even 
assuming that Jesus Christ does not govern His Church, one 





ON METAPHYSICS 349 


cannot, unless one is singularly prejudiced, prefer the particular 
opinions of some sect or other to the decisions of a Council. All 
this, Theodore, seems to me evident. I am no longer afraid of 
anything except obstinacy in my friends, and I am only looking 
for some good ways of making amends to their self-respect ; for 
I am very much afraid of not possessing the manners which 
are needed to free them from undertakings of all kinds to which 
I may find they have pledged themselves. 

THEODORE. You have, Aristes, all that is needed for this 
purpose. Courage! You know but too well how to manage 
men, what provokes them, and what makes them run away. 
We must hope that what is likely to hinder them will be broken 
down by grace,—I mean those secret links which you cannot 
undo. While you are speaking to their ears, perhaps God in 
His loving kindness will touch their hearts. 


FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


The same continued—The incomprehensibility of our mysteries is a con- 
clusive proof of their truth—Elucidation of the dogmas of faith— 
The incarnation of Jesus Christ—Proof of His divinity against the 
Socinians—All creatures, even the angels, are able to worship God 
through His aid alone—Faith in Jesus Christ renders us acceptable 
before God. 


I. ArtstEs. Ah, Theodore, how can I open my heart to 
you, how express my joy, how make you feel the happy state 
to which you have brought me? At present I resemble a man 
saved from a shipwreck, or one finding everything calm after 
a storm. I have often felt myself disturbed by dangerous move- 
ments, at the sight of our incomprehensible mysteries. Their 
profundity has frightened me, their obscurity overwhelmed me; 
and, though my heart has yielded to the strength of authority, it 
has done so not without difficulty on the part of the intellect ; 
for, as you know, the intellect is naturally apprehensive in 
darkness. But now I find that everything within me is in accord, 
the intellect follows the heart. Indeed, the intellect leads, the 
intellect carries the heart with it, for, paradoxical as it may 
seem, the more obscure our mysteries are, the more credible 
they now appear to me. Yes, Theodore, I find even in the 
obscurity of our mysteries, received as they are by so many 
different nations, an invincible proof of their truth. 

How, for example, can we reconcile the Unity of God with 
the Trinity—a society of three different persons in the perfect 
simplicity of the divine nature? It is incomprehensible, cer- 
tainly, but it is not incredible. It is beyond us, it is true; 
but granted a little good sense and we shall believe it, at least 
if we want to be of the same religion as the apostles; for, after 
all, assuming that they did not know this ineffable mystery, 
or that they did not teach it to their successors, I maintain 
that it is impossible that so extraordinary an opinion should 


have found that universal credence which is attached to 
350 








Pn ees = 
Pee ee 


ON METAPHYSICS 351 


it in the whole Church, and among so many different nations. 
The more monstrous—to allow an expression of the enemies 
of the faith—the adorable mystery appears, the more it clashes 
with human reason, the more it staggers the imagination, the 
more obscure, incomprehensible, impenetrable it is, the less 
credible is it that it should have insinuated itself naturally into 
the minds and hearts of all the Catholics of so many countries, 
so distant from one another. I understand, Theodore; never 
are the same errors universally diffused everywhere, especially 
not those errors which shock the imagination, which have 
nothing sensuous about them, and which seem to contradict 
the simplest and most common notions. 

If Jesus Christ did not watch over His Church, the number 
of Unitarians would soon exceed that of the true Catholics. 
This I see, for there is nothing in the opinions of these heretics 
which is not naturally acceptable to the mind. I understand 
quite well that opinions which are in harmony with our intelli- 
gences may in time become established. I can even see that the 
most fantastic opinions may prevail with certain people possessed 
of a peculiar turn of the imagination. But that a truth which 
is so sublime, so far removed from the senses, so opposed to 
human reason—in a word, so contrary to the whole of nature 
as this great mystery of our faith—that a truth of this kind 
should be so universally diffused and should be triumphant 
among all the nations to whom the apostles have preached the 
Gospel, especially if we assume that these first preachers of our 
faith knew nothing of this mystery, is assuredly inconceivable, 
however little one knows of the human mind. 

That there should be heretics who are opposed to a dogma so 
sublime I am not at all surprised at. I should be not a little sur- 
prised if no one had ever disputedit. It is far from being the case 
that this truth has never been attacked. That may be. People 
will always make a merit of attacking whatever seems to offend 
against reason. But that, after all, the mystery of the Trinity 
should have prevailed, that it should have maintained itself 
everywhere where the religion of Jesus Christ is accepted, without 
its having been known and taught by the apostles, without any 
authority and divine power, only a little good sense is needed, 
it seems to me, to recognise that nothing is more unlikely than 
this; for it is not even likely that so divine a dogma, so much 
above reason, so far removed from any that can strike the 


352 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


imagination and the senses, should come naturally to the mind 
of anyone. 


IJ. THEODORE. Assuredly, Aristes, your mind can be quite at 
peace, since you now are able to extract the light from the darkness 
itself, and transform into a clear proof of our mysteries the im- 
penetrable obscurity whichenvelops them. Let the Socinians blas- 
pheme against our holy religion, let them turn it to ridicule; this 
blasphemy and this ridicule which they think they are heaping 
upon it will but inspire you with respect for it. What to others 
is a cause of disturbance cannot but strengthen you. How can 
you help but enjoy a profound peace? For, after all, that 
which could arouse in us fear and anxiety does not consist in 
those plausible truths which everybody believes without difficulty, 
but the profundity and impenetrability of our mysteries. 
I understand, therefore, how it is that you are quite at peace. 
Enjoy this peace, my dear Aristes. But let us not, I pray you, 
judge of the Church of Jesus Christ as of purely human societies ; 
it has a Head who will never permit it to become the mistress 
of error; its infallibility rests*upon the divinity of Him who 
guides it. We must not conclude solely by the rules of good 
sense that such and such mysteries cannot be inventions of the 
human mind. We have a decisive authority, another way both 
shorter and more certain than that kind of examination. Let 
us humbly follow this way, so as to render honour, by our confi- 
dence and submission, to the power, vigilance, lovingkindness, 
and other qualities of the supreme Shepherd of our souls ; for it 
is in a manner to blaspheme against the divinity of Jesus Christ, 
or against His love of His spouse, to demand absolutely other 
proofs of the truths necessary to our salvation than those 
which we derive from the authority of the Church. 

If, Aristes, you believe a certain article of our faith because, 
on the ground of an examination instituted by you, you recognise 
that it is an Apostolic tradition, you honour by your faith the 
mission and apostleship of Jesus Christ ; for your faith expresses — 
the judgment which you arrive at that God sent Jesus Christ 
into the world in order to teach us the truth. But if your 
belief is based upon this reason alone, without regard to the in- 
fallible authority of the Church, you are not rendering honour to 
the wisdom and generality of the Providence which furnishes 
the simple and ignorant with a sure and natural means for 








ON METAPHYSICS 353 


acquiring the truths which are necessary to salvation. You 
are not honouring the power, or at least the vigilance, of 
Jesus Christ over His Church; it would seem that you suspect 
Him of being willing to abandon it to the spirit of error; 
so that the faith of those who humbly submit to the authority 
of the Church does greater honour to God and to Jesus Christ 
than your faith, since it expresses more exactly the divine 
attributes and the character of our Mediator. Add to this that it 
is in perfect accord with the opinion which we ought to have of 
the weakness and limitation of our intellect ; and that, if on the 
one hand it expresses our faith in God and in the love of Jesus 
Christ, it indicates clearly, on the other hand, that we have a 
right and salutary distrust of ourselves. Thus you see quite 
well that the faith of him who submits to the authority of the 
Church is very acceptable to God, since from whatever point 
of view we consider it, it expresses the judgments which 
God desires we should have of His own attributes, of the 
character of Jesus Christ, and of the limitation of the human 
intellect. 


III. Nevertheless, remember, Aristes, that the humble and 
submissive faith of those who yield to authority is neither blind 
nor injudicious; it is based on reason. Assuredly, infallibility 
is contained in the idea of a divine religion, of a society which 
has for its Head a being subsisting in the eternal Wisdom, a society 
established for the salvation of the simple and ignorant. Good 
sense, so it seems to me, demands that we should believe the 
Church to be infallible. We must, therefore, submit implicitly to 
its authority. But this is so only because reason tells us that there 
is no danger in submitting to it, and that the Christian who 
refuses to do so belies by his refusal the opinion which he ought 
to have of the character of Jesus Christ. 

Our faith is perfectly reasonable in its principle ; it does not 
owe its institution to prejudice, but to right reason, for Jesus 
Christ has proved His mission and His character in an incontest- 
able way ; His glorious resurrection is so well attested that one 
must needs renounce all claim to common sense to call it in 
question. Nowadays truth does not make itself respected by 
the brilliant lustre and the majesty of miracles; for it is 
maintained by the authority of Jesus Christ, who is recognised 
as infallible, and who has promised His omnipotent assistance 

23 


354 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


and tender vigilance to the divine society of which He is the 
Head. Let the faith of the Church be contested by the different 
heresies of the particular sects; this is bound to happen in order 
to manifest the fidelity of the good. The vessel in which 
Jesus Christ reposes may perhaps be tempest-tost, but it 
incurs no danger. To fear the storm is to lack faith; the winds 
must roar and the sea swell its torrents before subsiding to a 
calm. Otherwise it would not be possible to make the power 
which one has of commanding them felt. But if the Lord 
permits the powers of hell to... 

THEOTIMUS. Permit me to interrupt you, Theodore. You 
know that we have only the rest of this day to spend with you. 
We have already had only too much about the infallibility of the 
Church. Aristes is convinced of it. Give us, I beg of you, 
some principles which might guide us to an understanding of 
the truths which we believe, which might increase in us the pro- 
found respect which we ought to have for the Christian religion 
and morality, or perhaps give us some idea of the method which ~ 
you would pursue in so sublime a matter. 


IV. THEODORE. I have no particular method for this purpose. 
I judge of things only by the ideas which represent them depend- 
ently upon the facts which are known to me. That is my whole 
method. The principles of my knowledge are all in my ideas, and 
the rules of my conduct, so far as religion is concerned, in the 
truths of faith. My entire method resolves itself into serious 
attention to what enlightens me and guides me. 

ARISTES. I do not know whether Theotimus understands 
what you are saying, but as for me, I do not understand it at 
all. It is too general. 

THEODORE. I believe Theotimus understands me well enough. 
But a little more explanation is needed. I always distinguish care- 
fully the dogmas of faith from the proofs and explanations which 
may be given of them. As for the dogmas, I find them in 
tradition and the consent of the universal Church, and I find 
them indicated better in the definitions of the Councils than any- 
where else. I think you will agree with this: since the Church 
is infallible, we must abide by what it decides. 

ARISTES. But do you not findthem also in the Holy Scriptures ? 

THEODORE. I believe, Aristes, that the safest and shortest 
course is to search for them in the Holy Scriptures, but as explained 








ON METAPHYSICS 855 


by tradition, I mean by the general Councils, or as generally 
accepted everywhere, explained by the same spirit that dictated 
them. I know quite well that Scripture is a divine book and 
the rule of our faith, but I do not separate it from tradition, 
because I do not doubt but that the Councils have interpreted it 
better than I can do. You must give a fair latitude to what I 
am saying. The Councils do not reject Scripture; they accept 
it with respect, and thereby they establish its authenticity for 
the faithful who might well confuse it with the apocryphal 
books. But, apart from this, they teach us several truths which 
the apostles have confided to the Church, and which have been 
disputed, which truths are not easily discovered in the canonical 
Scriptures; for how many heretics find quite the contrary in 
them? In a word, Aristes, I try to be quite sure about the dogmas 
upon which I want to meditate with a view of attaining to some 
understanding of them; and then I use my intellect in the same 
way as those who study physics. I consult with all the attention 
I can the idea which I have of my subject as it is presented to 
me by faith. I go back continually to what seems to me the most 
general and the most simple in order to obtain some light. 
When I do, I contemplate it ; but I follow it only to the extent 
to which it attracts me irresistibly by the force of its evidence, 
The least obscurity causes me to fall back upon my dogma, 
which—in the fear I have of error—inevitably is and always 
will be my rule in questions which concern faith. 

Those who study physics never argue against experience; 
but neither do they argue on the ground of experience against 
reason; they hesitate, not seeing the way of passing from one 
to the other; they hesitate, I say, not as regards the certainty 
of experience or the evidence of reason, but as to the way of 
reconciling the one with the other. The facts of religion or 
decided dogmas are my experiences in matters of theology. 
Never do I call them in question, they furnish me with rules and 
with guidance to intelligence. But, when believing myself to be 
following them, I feel myself in conflict with reason, I stop short, 
fully aware that the dogmas of faith and the principles of reason 
must, in truth, be in harmony with one another, however 
opposed they appear to be in my mind. I abide, then, by my 
submission to authority, full of respect for reason, but con- 
vinced of the weakness of my intellect and in continual distrust 
of myself. Finally, if enthusiasm for truth is kindled anew, I 


356 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


begin my researches once more; and, by alternately attending 
to the ideas which enlighten me and the dogmas which sustain 
and guide me, I discover, without having recourse to any other 
peculiar method, the means of transition from faith to under- 
standing. Yet usually, fatigued by my efforts, I leave to 
people who are more enlightened and capable of greater appli- 
cation than I am an investigation which I think myself incapable 
of carrying out; and the only reward which I derive from my 
work is that I am continually realising more and more clearly 
the smallness of my own mind, the profundity of our mysteries, 
and the great need which we all have of an authority to guide 
us. Well, Aristes, are you content ? 

ARISTES. Not overmuch. All that you are saying is still so 
general that it seems to me you are not teaching me anything 
whatever. Examples, if you please; reveal some truth to me, 
in order that I may just see how you set about finding it. 

THEODORE. What truth ? 

ARISTES. The fundamental truth of our religion. 

THEODORE. But this truth is already known to you, and 
I believe I have already amply demonstrated it to you. 

ARISTES. It does not matter. Let us see. One cannot 
give too much proof of it. It is from it that we must begin. 

THEOTIMUs. That is true; but will it be with that that we 
shall finish ; for soon we must part ? 

ARISTES. I hope also that it will not be long before we meet 
again. 


V. THEODORE. I cannot say, for I desire it so much that 
I am afraid it will not come to pass; but let us not argue 
about the future, let us benefit by the present. Attend to what 
I am going to put before you. 

In order to discover by means of reason among all the religions 
the one which God has established, we must consider atten- 
tively the notion which we have of God or the infinitely 
perfect Being; for it is clear that all that is accomplished by 
any causes must stand in some relation to that notion. Let us, 
then, Aristes, consult the notion of the infinitely perfect Being, 
and let us mentally pass in review all that we know of the 
divine attributes, since it is from this source that we must 
obtain the light which we need in order to discover what we are 
in search of. 








ON METAPHYSICS 357 


ARISTES. Well, and this having been done ? 

THEODORE. Gently, gently, I beg of you. God knows 
perfectly those attributes which I am assuming to be present 
to your mind. He glories in their possession. He takes an 
infinite pleasure in them. He can, therefore, only act in accord- 
ance with what He is, only in a way which bears the char- 
acter of these same attributes. Notice this carefully ; for it is 
the great principle which we must follow when we wish to know 
what God does or does not do. Men do not always act in 
accordance with what they are, but this is because they are 
ashamed of themselves. I knew a miser whom you would have 
taken for the most liberal man in the world. Be not, therefore, 
misled ; men do not always express in their actions, still less 
in their words, the opinion which they have of themselves, 
because they are not what they ought to be. But it is not so 
in the case of God. The infinitely perfect Being cannot but 
act in accordance with what He is. When He acts He necessarily 
gives outward expression to His eternal and immutable judg- 
ment regarding His attributes, because He feels satisfaction in 
them and glories in their possession. 

ARISTES. That isevident ; but I do not see whither all these 
generalities tend. 


VI. THEODORE. To this, Aristes, that God only gives perfect 
expression to His judgment regarding Himself in the incarna- 
tion of His Son, the consecration of His Pontiff, the establish- 
ment of the religion which we profess, in which alone He can 
find the worship and adoration which express His divine attributes 
and which are in harmony with His judgment of them. When 
God created chaos out of nothing, He said, ““I am the Om- 
nipotent.” When He made the universe, He delighted in His 
wisdom. When He created man free, capable of good and evil, 
He gave utterance to a judgment of His justice and goodness. 
But in joining His Word to His Work, He expressed the fact 
that He was infinite in all His attributes, that this great universe 
is as nothing to Him, that everything is profane in relation 
to His holiness, His excellence, His sovereign majesty. In a 
word, He speaks as a God, He acts in accordance with what He 
is and in accordance with all that He is. Compare, Aristes, our 
religion with that of the Jews, of the Mohammedans and of all the 
others that you know, and judge which is that which expresses 


358 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


most distinctly the judgment which God has and which we ought 
to have of His attributes. 
ARISTES. Ah, Theodore, I understand you. 


VII. THEODORE. Yes, I suppose so. But note this: God is 
Spirit, and desires to be worshipped in spirit andin truth. True 
worship does not consist in external matters, in certain positions 
of our bodies, but in certain attitudes of our mind, in the pre- 
sence of the divine majesty, that is to say, in the judgments and 
movements of the soul. Now, he who offers the Son to the 
Father, who adores God through Jesus Christ, gives utterance 
through his action to a judgment resembling that which God 
has of Himself. Out of all the judgments he gives utterance 
to that one most exactly expresses the divine perfections, 
and above all the infinite excellence and holiness which separates 
the divine from all besides and lifts it infinitely above all created 
things. Faith in Jesus Christ is, therefore, the true religion, 
approach to God through Jesus Christ the only true worship, the 
only way of putting our minds into an attitude of adoration 
of God, the only way, consequently, which can win for us looks 
of pleasure and benevolence from the author of the happiness for 
which we hope. 

He who gives his goods to the poor, or who risks his 
life for the safety of his country, even he who loses his life 
generously in order to avoid committing an injustice, knowing 
well that God is sufficiently powerful to reward him for his 
self-sacrifice, expresses in truth by his action a judgment which 
honours the divine justice, and which renders it favourable 
towards him; but this action, meritorious though it be, does not 
adore God perfectly, if he whom I am assuming to be capable 
of performing it refuses to believe in Jesus Christ, and claims 
to be able to approach God without His mediation. The opinion 
which this man by his refusal has of himself, namely, that he is 
worth something in relation to God, being directly opposed to 
the judgment which God gives utterance to, by the mission 
and consecration of His Pontiff,—this presumptuous opinion 
renders useless for his eternal salvation an action otherwise 
meritorious. For, in order fairly to merit the title to possession of 
an infinite good, it is not enough to give expression by means 
of some morally good deeds to the justice of God ; it is necessary 
divinely to pronounce by faith in Jesus Christ a judgment which 


% 


ON METAPHYSICS 359 


shall honour God in accordance with all that He is; for it is 
only by the merit of this faith that our good deeds receive that 
supernatural excellence which gives us a right to the heritage 
of the children of God. It is, indeed, only by the merit of this 
faith that we can secure the power to conquer our dominant 
passions and to sacrifice our life from a pure love of justice. 
Our actions owe their moral character to the relation in which 
they stand to the immutable order, and their merit to the 
judgments which we express by means of them of the divine power 
and justice. But they owe their supernatural worth and, so 
to speak, their infinity and divinity to Jesus Christ alone, whose 
incarnation, sacrifice and priesthood indicating clearly that 
there is no relation between the Creator and the creature, 
establish thereby so great a relationship that God is perfectly 
pleased and glorified in His work. Do you understand quite 
clearly, Aristes, what I can express in but an imperfect 
manner ? 


VIII. Artstes. I think I understand. There is no relation 
between the infinite and the finite. This perhaps may pass 
for an axiom. The universe compared with God is as naught, 
and must count for naught; but only Christians, only those 
who believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, attach no value 
to their own being and to this vast universe which we admire. 
Perhaps philosophers are of this opinion. But they do not give 
it utterance. On the contrary, they give the lie to this specula- 
tive opinion by their actions. They dare to approach God as 
though they did not know that the distance between Him and 
ourselves is infinite. They imagine that God is satisfied with 
the profane worship they offer Him. They have the insolence, 
or, if you like, the presumption to adore Him. Let them be 
silent. Their respectful silence will express better than their 
words do the speculative judgments which they form of what they 
are in relation to God. To Christians alone is it permitted to 
open their mouths in divine praise of the Lord. To them alone 
access is granted to the sovereign Majesty. For they regard 
themselves and the rest of the universe as nothing in relation 
to God, when they protest that it is only through Jesus 
Christ that they enter into any relation with Him, This anni- 
hilation to which their faith reduces them gives them a veritable 
reality before God. This judgment which they express in 


360 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


harmony with God Himself attaches an infinite value to their 
worship. Everything is profane as compared with God, and 
must be consecrated by the divinity of the Son to be worthy 
of the holiness of the Father, to merit His kindness and 
benevolence. Such is the unshakable foundation of our holy 
religion. 


IX. THEODORE. Certainly, Aristes, you understand my thought 
well enough. From the finite to the infinite, and, what is more, 
from the profound nothingness to which the Fall has reduced us, 
to the divine holiness, to the right hand of the Most High, the 
distance isinfinite. By nature we are but the children of wrath— 
“natura filii ire.’’ We should be as atheists in this world 
without a God, without a benefactor: ‘“‘sine Deo in hoc 
mundo.”! But through Jesus Christ behold we are come to life 
again, behold us lifted up and seated in the highest heaven, 
“He hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us 
up with Him and made us sit with Him in heavenly places, in 
Christ Jesus.’ At present we do not feel our adoption in Jesus 


Christ, our worth, our divinity: ‘‘partakers of the divine © 


nature.’’3 But this is because our life is hid with Jesus Christ 
in God. When Jesus Christ reappears, we also shall appear with 
Him in glory, “‘ we know that when He shall appear, we shall be 
like Him.’4 “‘ Your life,” says St. Paul,5 ‘is hid with Christ in 
God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye 
also appear with Him in glory.”’ There will no longer be between 
us and the divine being that infinite distance which has separated 
us: ‘‘ But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off 
are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace.”’ 6 
For through Jesus Christ we all have access to the Father. 
“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto 
the Father.’’7 Now, therefore [listen further to the conclusion 
of the apostle], “‘ ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but 
fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 
and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets ; 
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone. In whom all 
the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple 
in the Lord. In whom ye also are builded together for 


t Eph. il. 3, 12. a Ibid, ii. 5, 6. sta) Pet, ita. 4 1 Johniii. 2 
§ Col. iii. 3, 4. 6 Eph. ii. 13, 14. 7? Ibid, 18. 


ON METAPHYSICS 361 


a habitation of God in the Spirit.”! Weigh all these 
words, Aristes, and especially these: ‘‘in whom all the build- 
ing fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in 
the Lord.” 

ARISTES. Only the Man-God, Theodore, can unite the creature 
with the Creator, sanctify the profane and construct a temple 
wherein God can dwell with honour. I understand now the 
meaning of the words: “God was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto Himself.”"2 It is a common notion that between the finite 
and the infinite there is no relation. Everything depends upon 
this indisputable principle. Any creed which ignores this principle 
shocks our reason and brings dishonour on the Divine Being. The 
eternal Wisdom cannot be its author. Only pride, ignorance, 
or at any rate the stupidity of the human mind can now 
approve of it; for the religion of Jesus Christ alone expresses 
the judgment which God has and which we ought to have of 
the limitations of the creature and the supreme Majesty of the 
Creator. 

THEODORE. What say you then, Aristes, of the Socinians and 
Arians and all those false Christians who deny the divinity of 
Jesus Christ, and who claim nevertheless to have access to 
God through Him ? 

ARISTES. They are people who find some relation between 
the infinite and the finite, and who look upon themselves as of 
some value when compared with God. 

THEOTIMUS. Not at all, Aristes, since they recognise that 
it is through Jesus Christ alone that they win access to 
God. 

ARISTES. Yes, but their Jesus is nothing but pure creature. 
They do, therefore, find some relation between the finite and 
the infinite, and they utter this false judgment, this judgment 
so offensive to the Divine Being, when they adore God through 
Jesus Christ. How can the Jesus of these heretics give them 
access to the divine majesty—he who is himself infinitely distant 
from God? How can he establish a worship which shall make 
us give utterance to the judgments which God has of Himself and 
which shall express the holiness, divinity, infinity, of His essence? 
Every worship based upon such a Jesus assumes, Theotimus, some 
relation between the infinite and the finite, and lowers the 
divine majesty. It is a false worship, offensive to God, incapable 

1 Eph, il. 19-22, a 2Cor. v. 19. 


362 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


of reconciling Him with mankind. There can be no religion but 
that which is based upon the only Son of the Father, upon 
this Man-God who joins heaven and earth, the finite and 
the infinite, through the incomprehensible harmony of the 
two natures, which makes Him at the same time like to His 
Father and resembling ourselves. This seems to me evident. 


X. THEOTIMUS. It is clear, I admit. But what shall we 
say of the angels? Did they wait to glorify God until Jesus 
Christ was at their head ? 

ARISTES. Let us not abandon, Theotimus, what appears to 
us to be evident, whatever difficulty we may find in reconciling 
it with certain things which we hardly know. Reply for me, 
Theodore, I beg of you. 

THEODORE. The angels did not wait for Jesus Christ, for Jesus 
Christ was before them. He is the firstborn of all creatures, 
primogemitus omnis creaturae.t It is not two thousand years 
since He was born at Bethlehem, but it is six thousand 
since He was sacrificed. Agnus occisus est ab ongine mundt. 2 
How is that? It is because the first of God’s designs was the 
incarnation of His Son, because it is in Him alone that God 
receives the adoration of the angels, that He permitted the sacrifice 
of the Jews, and that He receives and will receive our praises 
eternally. ‘‘ Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day and 
for ever.’’3 Everything expresses and symbolises Jesus Christ. 
Everything is in its way related to Him, from the noblest of 
all intelligent minds to the most despised of insects. When 
Jesus Christ was born at Bethlehem the angels glorified the Lord. 
They all sang in one accord, ‘‘ Glory to God in the highest.” 4 
They all declared that it was through Jesus Christ that heaven 
was full of glory. But it is to us that they declared this, to 
us to whom the future is not present. They have always pro- 
tested to Him who is immutable in His designs and who sees His 
works before they are accomplished that they need a Pontiff in 
order to give Him divine adoration. They recognised as their 
head the Saviour of men even before His temporal birth. They 
always regarded themselves as nothing when compared with God, 
except perhaps those proud angels who were thrown into Hell 
because of their pride. 


Col. i. 15. a Rev.. xiii. 8. 
3 Heb. xiii. 8. 4 Luke ii, 14 


ON METAPHYSICS 363 


ARISTES. You recall to my mind the chant of the Church 
when all is ready for the offering of sacrifice to God, Per quem 
majestatem tuam laudant angeli, adorant dominationes, tremunt 
potestates, etc. The priest raises his voice in order to lift up our 
souls to heaven: sursum corda, to teach us that it is through 
Jesus Christ that even the angels adore the divine majesty, and 
to induce us to join with them under the divine head, so as to 
constitute but one choir of praise and to be able to say 
to God: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth! 
Plent sunt coeli et terra gloria tua. Heaven and earth 
are full of the glory of God, but only through Jesus 
Christ, the Pontiff of the Most High. Through Him alone 
the creatures, however excellent they be, are able to 
adore God, pray to Him, and render thanks to Him for His 
goodness. 

THEOTIMUS. It is, assuredly, in Jesus Christ that everything 
has its being, since without Him even heaven is not worthy 
of the Majesty of the Creator. The angels can in themselves 
have no relation, access, or communion with the Infinite Being. 
It is necessary that Jesus Christ should intervene, and that He 
should pacify heaven as well as earth—in a word, that He should 
reconcile all things in general with God. It is true that He is 
not the Saviour of angels in the same sense as He is the Saviour 
of men. He did not deliver them from their sins as He did us. 
But He did deliver them from the incapacity that naturally 
attaches to all creatures of having any relation with God and of 
rendering to God divine honour. Heis, therefore, their Head just 
as He is ours, their Mediator, their Saviour, since it is only through 
Him that they subsist and that they approach the infinite Majesty 
of God, and that in accord with God Himself they can give utter- 
ance to the judgments which they have of His holiness. It seems to 
me that St. Paul had this truth in mind when he wrote those most 
divine words to the Colossians: ‘‘ Who hath delivered us from 
the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom 
of His dear Son: in whom we have redemption through His 
blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the 
invisible God, the firstborn of every creature ; for by Him were 
all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible 
and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or princi- 
palities, or powers: all things were created by Him; and He 
is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is 


364 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the 
firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the 
preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should 
all fulness dwell ; and having made peace through the blood of His 
Cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I 
say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.”! How 
excellent these words are and how nobly they express the great 
idea which we ought to have of our holy religion ! 


XI. ArIsTES. It is true, Theotimus, that this passage of St. 
Paul, and perhaps many others, is in perfect agreement with 
what we have just said, but we must admit in good faith that the 
great motive which Scripture ascribes to God for the incarnation 
of His Son is His loving kindness to men: ‘“‘ For God so loved 
the world,’ says St. John, “that He gave His only begotten 
Son.”” There are a number of other passages which you know 
better than I do teaching the same truth. 

TuEoTIMus. Who doubts that the Son of God assumed 
human form out of goodness to mankind and to deliver them 
from their sins? But likewise who can doubt that He delivers 
us from our sins in order to consecrate us as a living temple to 
the glory of His Father, so that we and even the angels should 
through Him render divine honour to the sovereign Majesty ? 
These two motives are not inconsistent but subordinate the one 
tothe other. And since God loves all things in proportion as they 
are worthy of love, since He loves Himself infinitely more than 
us, it is clear that the greater of these two motives, the one to 
which all the others must be referred, is that His attributes 
should be glorified in a divine manner by all His creatures in 
Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Since Scripture was not written for the angels, it was not 
necessary that we should be told over and over again that Jesus 
Christ came to be their Head as well as ours, and that we should 
form with them but one Church, but one concert of praise. A 
Scripture written for men, and for men who are sinners, had to 
speak, as it has done and incessantly, to put before us the motive 
which was most capable of arousing in us an ardent love for 
our liberator. It had to reveal to us our unworthiness and the 
absolute necessity of a Mediator to enable us to approach God 
—a necessity grounded still more upon the nothingness and 

t Col, i. 13=20, 


a 


+See Pe <a 


ON METAPHYSICS 865 


abomination of the Fall than upon the incapacity naturally 
belonging to all created things. No pure creatures can in them- 
selves render divine honour to God, but neither can they dis- 
honour Him as sinners do. God does not find His pleasure in 
them, but neither is He horror-stricken by them as He is by sin, 
and by him who commits sin. Scripture, then, had to speak in 
the way it does of the incarnation of Jesus Christ in order to 
make men feel their wretchedness and the compassion of God, 
so that the feeling of our wretchedness should keep us in humility, 
and the compassion of God should fill us with confidence and 
love. 

THEODORE. You are right, Theotimus. Holy Scripture speaks 
to us in accordance with God’s designs, which are to humble the 
creature and to link him to Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ 
to Himself. If God allowed all mankind to be enveloped in sin 
in order to show them mercy in Jesus Christ, He did so in order 
to humble their pride and to raise the power and dignity of His 
Pontiff. He willed that we should owe all that we are to our divine 
Head, so as to unite us with Him the more closely. He permitted 
the corruption of His work in order that the Father of the future 
world, the author of the heavenly Jerusalem, should operate upon 
the non-being, not of Being, but of holiness and justice, and 
that in Him and through Him we should become a new creature ; 
in order that filled with the divinity, the fulness whereof dwells 
in Him as in one substance, we should be able through Jesus 
Christ alone to render to God divine honours. What do we 
not owe to Him who lifts us up to the dignity of God’s children, 
after having saved us from a state worse than that of nonentity 
itself, and who in order to save us from it annihilated Himself 
to the extent of assuming a form similar to ours, so as to be the 
victim of oursins ? Why, then, should the Scripture, not intended 
for the angels, not intended so much for philosophers as for 
simple people, intended only to make us love God and to link us to 
Jesus Christ and through Him to God, why then, I say, should the 
Scripture explain to us God’s designs in the incarnation in relation 
to the angels ? Why should it not rest upon the worthlessness that 
attaches to all creatures, the worthlessness of the Fall being 
infinitely more palpable and the sight of this indignity being 
more capable of humbling us and of annihilating us before God ? 

The angels who are in heaven have never offended against 
God. Nevertheless, St. Paul teaches us that Jesus Christ 


366 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


pacifies that which is in heaven as well as that which is upon 
the earth: ‘‘And, having made peace through the blood of 
His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, 
whether they be things in earth or in heaven’’;! that God 
re-establishes, sustains, or, according to the Greek version, 
reunites all things under the same head that which is in heaven 
and that which is upon earth: ‘“ Instaurare omnia in Christo, quae 
in coelis, et quae in terra sunt, in tpso ;’’2 that Jesus Christ, in a 
word, is the Head of the whole Church, et ipsum dedit caput supra 
omnem Ecclestam.3 Is not this enough to make us understand that 
it is only through Jesus Christ that the angels themselves render 
divine honour to God, and that they only have communion with, 
access to, or relation with Him through His well-beloved Son, in 
whom the Father takes infinite delight, and through whom He 
finds perfect satisfaction in Himself? ‘‘ My beloved, in whom 
my soul is well pleased.’’ 4 

ARISTES, This appears to me evident. There are not two 
different Churches, two holy Sions. ‘‘ But you are come,”’ says 
St. Paul, ‘‘unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, 
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
angels,’’5 And since God has put Jesus Christ over the. whole of 
His Church, I believe that it is only through Him that the angels 
themselves fulfil their duties, and that they are on that account 
and always have been favourably received. Yet I have a 
difficulty to put before you in regard to the principle which 
you established a little while ago. 


XII. You have told us, Theodore, that God wills to be wor- 
shipped in spirit and in truth, that is to say by means of judg- 
ments and movements of the soul; and that our worship and even 
our good deeds derive their moral goodness from the judgments 
which they express, which judgments are in conformity with 
the divine attributes or with the immutable order of the divine 
perfections. You follow meso far. But now, do you think that 
plain folk understand so much subtlety ? Do you think that they 
form those judgments which adore God in spirit and in truth ? 
Nevertheless, if the generality of men do not form the judgments 
of the divine attributes or perfections which they ought to form, 
they do not express these judgments in their actions. They 


* Col, i, 20. + Eph. i. ro. 3 Ibid. 22. 
4 Matt, xii, 18. 5 Heb. xii. 22. 





ON METAPHYSICS 867 


perform, therefore, no good deeds. Through their faith in Jesus 
Christ they worship neither in spirit nor in truth, if they do 
not know that to offer the Son to the Father is to declare that 
creatures and sinners cannot directly have any relation 
with God. And this it seems to me is something of which 
many Christians do not think. They are good Christians all 
the same, and I do not believe that you would dare to con- 
demn them. 

THEODORE. Note this well, Aristes. To do a good action it 
is not absolutely necessary to know distinctly that through that 
action one is expressing a judgment which honours the divine 
attributes or conforms to the immutable order of the perfections 
contained in the divine essence. But that our actions should be 
good they must necessarily express such judgments, and he 
who acts must have at least confusedly an idea of this order, 
and he must love it, though he know not precisely what it is. 
To explain this further: When a man gives alms, it is possible 
that he is not thinking at the time that God is just. Far from 
being aware of the judgment that through his alms he is rendering 
honour to the divine justice, and that he is rendering it favour- 
able to himself, it may be that he is not thinking of the reward 
at all. It may also be the case that heis not aware that God con- 
tains within Himself the immutable order by whose beauty he is 
actually impressed, nor that it is the conformity of his action 
to this order which makes it essentially good and acceptable 
to Him whose invisible law is nothing but this same order. 
Nevertheless, it is true to say that he who gives alms expresses, 
through his liberality, the judgment that God is just; and that 
he expresses it the more distinctly the more the property of which 
he deprives himself through his charity will be needed by him 
for the satisfaction of his passions ; and finally, that the more 
distinctly he expresses it the greater is the honour which he 
renders to God, the greater is the reward which he gains for 
himself, the greater is the merit which he acquires before God. 
In like manner, though he does not know precisely what the 
immutable order is, or that the goodness of his action consists 
in its conformity with this order, it is nevertheless true that it is, 
and can be, just only through such conformity. 

Since the Fall our ideas are so confused and natural law is so 
annulled that we need a written law to teach us in palpable 
manner what we ought to do or not todo. As most men do not 


368 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


enter into themselves, they do not hear the inner voice which 
cries out to them: non concupisces. It was necessary that this 
voice should manifest itself outwardly and enter their minds 
through the senses. Nevertheless, men have never succeeded in 
getting rid entirely of the idea of order, the general idea which 
is expressed in the words, “‘ we must,” ‘‘ we ought,” ‘‘it is just.” 
For the least sign calls up this ineradicable idea even in children 
as yet attached to their mothers’ breasts, Without it, men would 
be quite irreclaimable, or rather absolutely incapable of either 
good orevil. Now, provided one acts on the basis of this confused 
and general idea of order, and that what one does is in perfect 
conformity with it, it is certain that the movement of the heart is 
regulated byit, though the mind be not to any extent enlightened 
byit. Itis true that it is obedience to the divine authority which 
produces faithful and good people. But as God issues commands 
only in accordance with His inviolable law, the immutable order, 
only in accordance with the eternal and invariable judgment 
which He has formed of Himself and of the perfections which He 
contains in His essence, it is clear that all our deeds are essentially 
good only in so far as they express and give utterance, so to 
speak, to this judgment. Let us come now to the objection of 
those good Christians who worship God in the simplicity of their 
faith. 


XIII. It is evident that the incarnation of Jesus Christ 
gives outward expression, as it were, to the judgment which 
God has formed of Himself, that nothing finite can have any 
relation to Him. Whoever recognises the necessity of a Mediator 
gives utterance to his consciousness of his own unworthiness, and if 
he believes at the same time that this Mediator cannot be a pure 
creature, however excellent that creature may be supposed to be, 
he extols infinitely the divine majesty. His faith is, then, in 
itselfin conformity with the judgment which God has of us and of 
His own divine perfections. His faith thus adores God in a 
perfect manner, since through judgments, which are true, and in 
conformity with those which God has of Himself, it places the 
mind in the most respectful attitude possible in the presence 
of His infinite majesty. But, yousay, most Christians do not 
understand all this subtlety. They go to God quite simply- 
They are not even aware that they are in this respectful attitude. 
I quite admit that they do not all know it in the way in which. 


ON METAPHYSICS 869 


you knowit. Yet nevertheless, they are in the same attitude. 
And God sees very well that they are, at least in the disposition of 
their heart. They leave it to Jesus Christ, who is their Head and 
spokesman, to be their representative before God in a manner that 
is befitting. And Jesus Christ, who looks upon them as upon His 
people, as upon members of His own body, as united to Him 
through their love and their faith, does not fail to intercede for them 
and to say aloud what they would not be able to express. Thus, 
all Christians, in the simplicity of their faith and in the preparation 
of their heart, ceaselessly adore all His divine attributes through 
Jesus Christ with an adoration which is very perfect and very 
acceptable toGod. It is notnecessary, Aristes, that we should know 
exactly the reasons of our faith, I mean the reasons with which 
metaphysics may furnish us. But it is absolutely necessary that 
we should profess this faith. In the same way, it is not 
necessary that we should know distinctly what it is that con- 


stitutes the morality of our deeds, though it is absolutely necessary 





that we should perform good deeds. I do not believe, however, 
that those who meddle with philosophy can employ their time 
more usefully than in trying to obtain some understanding of 
the truths which faith teaches us. 

ARISTES. Certainly, Theodore, there is no pleasure more 
sensible, or at least no joy more substantial, than that which is 
produced in us by understanding the truths of faith. 

THEOTIMUS. Yes, in those who have a great deal of love for 
religion and whose hearts are not corrupted. For there are people 
to whom light is painful. They are vexed to see what perhaps 
they would rather did not exist. 

THEODORE. There are a few such people, Theotimus; but 
there are many who are afraid, and with reason, lest they should 
fall into some error and drag others into it. They would be 
very glad to have matters made clear and religion defended. 
But as one naturally distrusts people whom one does not know, 
one gets afraid, frightened, angry, and gives vent to utterances 
of passion always unjust and uncharitable. This causes many 
people to be silent who ought perhaps to speak, and from whom 
I should have learnt better principles than those which I have 
put before you. Yet often this does not compel to silence those 
mad and presumptuous authors who recklessly publish all that 
occurs to their minds. As for me, when a man adopts as his 
principle to submit only to evidence and authority, when I see 

24 


370 FOURTEENTH DIALOGUE 


that he works only for the purpose of finding good proofs for 
accepted dogmas, I am not afraid of his being dangerously led 
astray. He may perhaps fallinto some error. But what would 
you have? This is bound up with our wretched condition. 
It would be to banish reason from this world, if in order 
to be entitled to reason we insisted upon immunity from 
error. 

ARISTES. It is necessary, Theodore, that I should confess 
in good faith my prepossession. Before we met, I was of opinion 
that reason must be banished altogether from religion, since 
it was only capable of causing confusion. But now I recognise 
that, if we abandoned it to the enemies of faith, we should soon 
be very hard pressed and be as discredited as the brutes. Whoever 
has reason on his side has mighty weapons wherewith to master 
all minds; for, after all, we are all rational and in essence rational. 
To pretend to despoil ourselves of reason as one gets rid of one’s 
official clothes is to make ourselves ridiculous and to vainly attempt 
the impossible. Thus, at the time when I decided that we ought 
not to use reason in matters of theology, I felt quite sure that 
I was demanding from the theologians something they would 
never grant. Isee now, Theodore, that I had gone to a dangerous 
extreme, which did not exactly redound to the honour of our 
holy religion, founded by the supreme Reason, which has adapted 
itself to our level in order to make us more rational. It is much 
better to abide by the course which you have adopted, of basing 
dogmas upon the authority of the Church, and of looking for 
proofs of these dogmas in the simplest and clearest principles 
with which reason provides us. Metaphysics must thus be 
made to serve religion (for of all the branches of philosophy 
there is almost no other which can be of use to it), and to throw 
upon the truths of faith that light which helps to reassure the 
intellect and fully to reconcile it with the heart. In this way we 
shall preserve our character of rationality, notwithstanding our 
obedience and submission to the authority of the Church. 

THEODORE. Remain firm in this thought, Aristes; always in 
submission to the authority of the Church, always ready to 
yield to reason. But do not take the opinions of certain doctors 
and of certain communities, or even of an entire nation, for un- 
questionable truths. Neither condemnthem toolightly. So far as 
the opinions of philosophers are concerned, never submit to them 
entirely unless you are obliged and compelled to do so by the 


ON METAPHYSICS 871 


weight of evidence. I give you this advice in order to cure 
the evil which I may have caused; and in order that, if I have 
had the misfortune to submit to you, as true opinions, some 
that are uncertain, you may be able to discover their falsity 
by following this good advice—advice which is so necessary 
and which I am very much afraid I have often neglected. 








INDEX 


Adamson, R., 62 

Arnauld, Antoine, 17, 29, 39f., 58, 
84, 91, 95, 128, 150, 245, 314, 
318, 322, 337 

Attention, as occasional cause of 
ideas, 60, 197, 308 

Augustine, St., 25,28, 36, 62, 244, 
240, 247 


Beauty, 27 
Berkeley, 19, 38 
Bérulle, Cardinal, 15 
Borelli, 257 


Cassirer, 31 

Causality, 51 f., 195 f. 
Malebranche and Hume, 55 

Clauberg, 53 

Colour, 146, 300 

Cordemoy, 53 

Corporeal things, 75, 84, 160 f. 

Creation, 50, 51 
and conservation, 185, 189 
purpose of, Dialogue IX _ 


De la Forge, 53 

De Mairan, 46 

Descartes— 
Dioptric, 299 
early influence on Malebranche, 16 
on formation of fetus, 285 
Physics, 270 
relation to Malebranche, 61 f, 
theory of perception, 22-3 


Error, 99 
Essence, 24 
and existence, 26 
Evil, Dialogue IX 
Extension, 72, 97, 109, 260 
External world, 36 f., 75, 84, 160 f. 


Fontenelle, 18, 19 
on occasionalism, 57 
Formica leo, 280 


General ideas, 93, 94 
Geometry, 82, 143, 156 


Geulincx, 53 
God— 
attributes of, 43 f., 203 f. 
existence of, 87 
generality and simplicity of His 
“ways,” 249 f. 
our knowledge of, 33, 90, 92 
ves cogitans, 43, 216 
ves extensa, 43, 207 f. 
union with, 197, 337 
vision in, 83 
Grace, laws of, 336 


Hicks, Prof. G. Dawes, 62 


Idea, 23, 24 

and essence, 24 

and feeling, 100 

and perception, 93-95 

of the Infinite, 28, 80 

reality of, 74 f., 96 
Imagination, 70 
Immortality, 73 
Infallibility of the Church, 343 f. 
Intelligible extension, 29f., 80, 83, 

87 f., 91 
and Divine Immensity, 213 


Laws— 
of the communication of motion, 
336 
of the union of the finite with 
the univeral Reason, 336 
of the union of mind and body, 
299 f., 336 
Leeuwenhoeck, 253 
Leibniz, 18 
Light, 18, 128, 300 


Malpighi, 287 
Martin, André, 16 
Mediator, need of, 365 
Mind— 
and body, 129f., 178, 182, 299 f., 
304, 356 
and matter, 21 
knowledge of others, 32 
knowledge of our own, 30, 102, 155 


374 INDEX 


Miracles, 129, 313 
Modes— 
of extension, 21, 72, 109 
of mind, 21, 72 
Moral order, 26 f., 219 f. 
Movement, 185 f. 
laws of, 336 
our awareness of, 30 


Neoplatonism, 25, 61, 62 
Novaro, 31, 38 
Number, 88 


Occasionalism, 51 f., 195 f. 


development of the theory of, 52 f. 


difficulties of, 57 

Optimism, 64, 241 

Oratory, the, 15 

Order, 131 

Organisms— 
growth of, 257 f. 
metamorphoses of, 280 
pre-formation theory of, 257 f. 


Pain, 115, 127 
Pelagianism, 246 

Pillon, 38 

Plants, generation of, 246 
Possible worlds, 64, 241 
Predestination, 243 
Providence, 251 f. 


Recherche de la Vévité, 16, 74, 84, 
95, 125, 150, 183, 289 
Religion and philosophy, 62, 139, 
163 f., 231, Dialogue XIV 
Representative Perception, 39, 40 
Revelation, 76, 160, 168 


Sciences, order of importance of, 160 
Self— 

consciousness of, 30, 102, 155 

No “‘ idea ”’ of, 102 
Self-love, 220 
Sense qualities, 124 f., 154 
Senses— 

evidence of, 70, 79 

function of, in the sciences, 142 f. 
Social order, basis of, 220, 306 
Soul and body, 127 f., 179 f. 
Spinoza, 46 f., 80, 227 
Substance, 73 
Swammerdam, 255 


Truth, 26, ror, 218 f. 
Van Helmont, 136 


Will— 
and attention, 60 
and the Good, 59, 219 
freedom of, 59 f., 222 
of God, 221 
Word, the, 25, 101, 152, 164 


Printed in Great Britain by 
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED 


Wii LONDON AND WOKING 








Luh 


ai j ud 
: aa 
Di. ae 
| Rit a] 
AIL ira} 
ie 


» Ki | 
RT eV athe 
y BN 


a 4 " HU } ty 
ae ‘ 
nh madi 





Se ae 
By aaa 
Pa UN ary eesti 

‘ We oe . 








| 


te) 
Le) 
wv 
wT 
+P] 
N 
N 
>] 
© 
N 
T 
= 
© 
+P] 


=< 
= 
=< 
[==] 
c 
=> 
= 
oO 
= 
= 
= 
uw 
Oo 
> 
os 
” 
c 
Lu 
> 
=z 
= 


on 
i ae Pe 
~PAP a 
Matas 


ee MA A a ees 
SAS ea oe ws 


Ry Ge 
FSX hahyo key 
Moen 
payor 


ewe vy 





